The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners heard a report this week from Rebecca Austin Director of Lincoln County Health and Human Services. She reported that Lincoln county has 381 total cases, 6,418 Negative tests, 13 have been hospitalized during illness, 27 have recovered and the county has had 8 deaths. There was one new case reported yesterday (7/27). The cases have been lower over the last couple of weeks however she said this could be attributed to test results taking a longer time to be processed. Austin said "we need to stay vigilant and keep up with social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands."
County Commission Chair Jacobson reported that the county can't apply for phase 2 as we are still on the Governor's watch list, which is for a minimum of 21-days. She said that would have been over last Friday. She said they are now waiting for updates from the state to see if we have been removed from the watch list. However Jacobson pointed out that the county still has not met all of the requirements to move to phase 2. The county has met six of ;the seven of the criteria however the county has also fallen back on two other requirements. Austin said she would like to see at least two to three weeks of continued declining cases before looking at moving forward with phase 2.
Commissioners Hall and Hunt agreed. Hall said that there is no point in having a phase 2 discussion yet as we may not event be eligible, and we need to continue to be cautious and not open up too quickly. Hunt said "it is hard for me to say when I would be comfortable in moving to phase 2, and certainly not until the numbers have dropped significantly. We continue to be a tourist attraction county and Labor day will be here soon and we could see even higher numbers then." Right now Lincoln County is the 6th highest in the state for positive cases. 78.9 per 10,000 people, almost twice the state average. The consensus was to continue monitoring and move forward cautiously.
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