Two more COVID-19 cases reported in the county Friday

The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Humboldt County Public Health (HCPH) have identified two additional positive cases of COVID-19 in the county on Friday, Aug. 14.
That raises the total number of positive cases to 126 since the virus was first identified and Humboldt County reported its first positive case on April 18. Humboldt County reports 95 recovered cases and one death, leaving 30 active cases of people with the virus in the county.
Of the most recent cases, one was in the 0-17 age group and one was in the 61-80-year-old age group.
The breakdown by age group is as follows: (0-17) 14, (18-40) 50, (41-60) 43, (61-80) 18 and (81+) 1.
While the county’s positivity rate in the past two weeks has been 26 percent, the county’s positive case counts represents a rate of 8.6 percent for the 1,311 individuals listing Humboldt as the county of residence that have been tested since the pandemic began.
“Our providers in Humboldt County are working together to evaluate and test our patients according to the guidelines set forth by the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). We are actively testing symptomatic patients through multiple avenues. This includes a rapid test, which takes approximately 15 minutes, an in-house test, which takes approximately one hour, or by sending samples out to a reference lab or the state hygienic lab which takes about 24-48 hours. Our providers follow a protocol based on patient presentation, symptoms and provider judgment to determine which route is to be used. We continue to monitor our kit samples on a daily basis to ensure we are able to provide each of these avenues to our providers and patients,” Public Health and HCMH reported in a public notification release.
“Based on our availability of samples and recommendations of the IDPH and CDC, we have not been testing asymptomatic patients. We continue to see and care for those with symptoms and recommend those without symptoms to seek Test Iowa site locations for testing. Today, the closest site location to Humboldt County is Storm Lake with Test Iowa Clinics in Algona and Clarion,” the public health report said.