Macon County is holding steady in the coronavirus pandemic, with two confirmed cases and one death from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
As of Tuesday, April 21, Macon County Public Health reported two confirmed COVID-19 cases among county residents, one of whom died. The other patient is recovering in isolation at home, according to the health department.
In Jackson County, two full-time residents were in isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to the Jackson County Department of Public Health. They are the first full-time Jackson residents to test positive.
As three Southern states bordering North Carolina – Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee – are in different stages of “opening up,” Kathy McGaha, the newly named director of Macon County Public Health, urged caution.
“We’re waiting to see when we are on the other side of the curve and heading down,” McGaha said. “We just haven’t seen that yet. It’s a small community, and we’re somewhat isolated,” she said. “Of course, New York is the big epicenter. Where does North Carolina stand compared to New York? We’re probably dragging behind New York, and Macon County is dragging behind the whole state.”
The measures currently in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus have proven effective, she said.
“I think the stay-at-home is working,” she said. “That, and quarantine, are tools that we know have worked for many diseases. We are confident that will improve a situation that has a lot of unknown variables.
“I want to be sure,” she said. “I don’t want to put anybody at risk. We don’t know the number of people that are asymptomatic but are positive, and that’s scary. Macon County has a high elderly population. A lot of chronic diseases come with age, and we just don’t want to put people at risk.”
Carmine Rocco, who will be stepping down as health director on April 29, said the availability of testing supplies is improving.
“The important thing is to get testing up and running as quickly as possible so we can get a better sense of what’s in our community,” Rocco said. “The other challenge is that there’s an estimated of 25-35 percent of the people out there may be asymptomatic and infected.”
McGaha stressed that there have been no cases at the county’s long-term care facilities.
“We’ve got teams that are going out into the community,” she said. “We’ve set up training for nursing homes, because we knew that’s the high-risk population. We have great relationships with nursing homes, and we’ve dealt with influenza outbreaks and other issues in the past. But this is new, it’s unknown. We knew they really needed to be prepared.”
With some residents questioning why the names of COVID-19 patients are not made public, the health department cited laws protecting a patient’s privacy, including their name and place of residence.
“We communicate all necessary information to the public for their health and safety, while also upholding our duty to protect our patient’s privacy,” said Emily Ritter, who heads the department’s health information office.