Alexander County gained another 73 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The county now has 1886 confirmed cases.
The Alexander County Health Department reports that 155 people are in quarantine with 19 citizens hospitalized. Leeanne Whisnant, Consolidated Human Services Director, said there were 136 positive cases in September, 469 in October, and 585 in November. Whisnant believes December could be even higher partly due to Thanksgiving gatherings. She said there has been a total of 193 positive cases at the Alexander Correctional Institution. Alexander remains one of almost 50 counties in the “red” tier of the state’s COVID-19 County Alert System for “critical community spread.” According to the NCDHHS dashboard, Alexander County’s current positive test rate is 16.3 percent, while the state has a rate of 9.7 percent.
There have been 19 deaths associated with the coronavirus.