Covid-19 cases continue to climb in Olmsted County

Olmsted County’s active Covid-19 case count and 7-day rolling average have once again hit record highs, according to the latest numbers released Wednesday by Olmsted County Public Health. 

Public Health reports 179 active cases of Covid-19 in Olmsted County, up from 144 at the beginning of the month. The seven-day rolling average of cases currently sits at 25, the highest it has ever been. (Last week, the county recorded 167 new cases, also a high.)

While the department says it is closely monitoring the steady increase in cases around the area, the rise in cases locally did not take anyone at Public Health by surprise — and has not come close to overwhelming the health care system, as is threatened in hotspots like Arizona and Florida.

“While this increase is not what we want to see, it is not unexpected,” the report reads. “Thankfully, we are not seeing the exponential growth and hospital infrastructure challenges as other states and jurisdictions are currently experiencing.”

Over 1,300 tests have been administered at the Graham Park testing facility, now the only active testing site in Rochester, so far this week. Tuesday’s positive test rate was 3.4 percent (17 positive cases out of 500 tests), below the county’s previously reported average of 3.8 percent. 

(Multiple days’ worth of data on positive test rates was not made available by the county this week, as it was in previous weeks.)

Public Health reported longer lines and testing wait times in the initial rollout of the consolidated testing site, exacerbated by the announcement of a cluster of cases linked to downtown Rochester bars. Over 60 cases have been linked to the cluster so far, and about one-third of all new cases in the past two weeks have hit people in their 20s. 

The case number connected to downtown is likely to rise within the next week, given the virus’s two-week incubation period. Public Health advised bar-goers to get tested if they went downtown for a drink between June 26 and July 7.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Olmsted County now sits at 1,336. Twenty people have died after contracting the virus, up from 17 reported last week.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.