COVID UPDATE: County announces four new cases, releases positivity rate

Milam County Judge Steve Young announced four new cases of COVID-19 were reported yesterday in the county.

"We have other potential cases that the Health Department is in the process of trying to confirm," he said. "As you know, we get a report from a provider of a positive test and then the Health Department contacts the person to confirm the test results before we report the case.  Currently the Health Department has a lot of cases to deal with."

The current number for Milam County are as follows: 137 total confirmed cases; 41 current active cases; 85 individuals being monitored by the Health Department; 371 total persons monitored by the Health Department thus far; five hospitalized, including one patient on a ventilator; 19 total hospitalized since March 2020; and one death.

"Also, today the Health Department released statistics of regarding the positivity rate of the tests in the county," Young said. "Excluding the 400 tests done last week in the county, of which, we cannot confirm any of those results, the positivity rate is over 48 percent. We hope to get some of these results tomorrow." 

 "The Yale School of Public Health (Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis) released a new study indicating that as much as 50 percent of the spreading is done by those who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic," he said. "This places more importance of wearing a mask."