Mills County Has Spike In Confirmed COVID-19 Cases

Mills County set a weekly record with 15 new confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus last week. The total number of confirmed cases in the county jumped from 36 as of Tuesday morning to 51 by Sunday evening.

“We do have this spike in cases here in July and it is concerning for us because we hate to see our numbers going that direction,” Mills County Public Health Administrator Julie Lynes said on Monday. “We’re no different than the state or federal level, but that spike in numbers, I attribute it to at the very end of June, our governor (Kim Reynolds) opened up all the businesses and eased all those restrictions. The weather has turned nice and people are out, they’re gathering and they’re in close proximity (to one another).”

The largest numbers of cases being confirmed in Mills County, Lynes said, are for people in the 18-40 and 41-60 age ranges.

“It’s almost half and half between those two (age classifications),” she said. “Right now, that’s where 90 percent of our cases are.”

The City of Glenwood and Mills County YMCA confirmed on Monday that a lifeguard at the Glenwood Aquatic Center is among the new positive cases in the county.

“We’re following our YMCA response to COVID-19 guidelines,” Mills County YMCA Executive Director Diana Burchett said. “We have currently eight guards out that are getting tested or were in close contact with him. Nobody is showing any symptoms.”

The lifeguard who tested positive is believed to have been exposed to the virus at a gathering over the Fourth of the July holiday weekend.

Lifeguards at the city-owned Glenwood Aquatic Center are provided by the YMCA. Burchett said the YMCA has 20 certified lifeguards on staff, which leaves 12 available to work.

The Glenwood City Council opened the aquatic center, with some reluctance, on June 27 with capacity restrictions and social distancing and public safety guidelines in place. Glenwood City Administrator Angie Winquist said the facility remains open. The city council was expected to assess the  aquatic center and swimming season at its regular meeting last night (Tuesday).

Lynes said she could not discuss specifics of any confirmed cases, but noted that virus activity is occurring across Mills County.

“I can tell you in general, we’ve had quite a few cases in Glenwood, but it’s not isolated to Glenwood only,” she said. “We have had other cases throughout the county in rural areas and smaller communities.”

Lynes said there’s no doubt the virus is more active than it’s ever been in Mills County.

“We have more going on right now than ever,” she said. Lynes noted that each confirmed COVID-19 case in the county is reviewed by public health officials.

“When a case comes out positive and it’s in Mills County, we have a local epidemiologist who reviews the case with a public health nurse and then we do all the contact tracing,” she said. “There are certain windows that have to be checked. What time frame did they test positive and what were the exposure dates? Did they have close contacts? That means they had to be within six feet of somebody for sustained period of over 15 minutes.”

Lynes said the advice she’s been offering since the COVID-19 outbreak began last winter may seem redundant, but social distancing, practicing  proper hygiene and wearing a facial covering can mitigate spread of the virus.

“If you are not guaranteed you can be six-foot distance between you and somebody, wear a mask,” Lynes said. “It’s good infection control, it will help us contain the disease.”