SALISBURY — After double-digit jumps in positive COVID-19 cases on Monday and Tuesday, county health officials reported a modest increase of six cases Wednesday and 33 additional recoveries.

Rowan County public health officials said there are 428 positive COVID-19 cases here, with 25 deaths, after 2,693 tests have been conducted. A total of 169 people have recovered, up from 136 one day earlier. Currently, 15 individuals are being hospitalized.

Four congregate living facilities in Rowan County are the sites of active COVID-19 outbreaks, including the Citadel; N.C. State Veteran’s Home, located on the Hefner VA Medical Center campus; Liberty Commons, located at 4412. S. Main St.; and the Laurels of Salisbury, located at 215 Lash Dr. By far, the Citadel is the largest such outbreak, with 154 positive COVID-19 cases, including 44 staff members and 110 patients. Some of those people live outside of Rowan County.

Of the 25 COVID-19 deaths locally, 17 have been from the Citadel nursing home, seven have been from the N.C. State Veteran’s Home and one was not associated with a congregate living facility. There is an average age of 84 among the deaths compared to an average age of 54.8 among all cases. County health officials confirmed on Monday that Liberty Commons has six total positive COVID-19 cases — two being staff members and the remaining four being residents.

An article published by the Charlotte Observer on Wednesday cited Citadel administrator Sherri Stoltzfus in saying there were 19 residents of the facility who had died as of Tuesday. Brown said Rowan County officials have not received notification from the facility regarding any additional deaths.

Statewide, a total of 12,758 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 after 164,482 tests have been conducted. There have been a total of 477 deaths with 516 hospitalizations.

Rowan County continues to have more cases and COVID-19 deaths than any of its immediate neighbors, including Cabarrus County, which has 333 cases and 17 deaths. A larger portion of people have recovered in neighboring counties, too, including 207 in Cabarrus County, the closest in case count to Rowan of any neighbor.

State data also show Rowan remains in the top six counties for positive cases and in a similar position for its number of deaths.

In other COVID-19 statistics:

• Individuals aged 65 and older make up the plurality of cases at 150. A total of 87 cases are in the 51-64 age range, 92 are aged 36-50, 91 are aged 18-35 and eight are younger than 18 years old.
• Of the positive cases, 264 individuals are white, 108 are black or African American, three are Asian, one is American Indian/Alaskan Native, 53 are Hispanic, 45 are unknown and seven are other.
• Females still make up the majority of positive cases, at 240, while males represent 188 positive cases.
• Zip code 28147 remains the area of the county with the most positive cases, at 191, which is where the Citadel nursing home is located. Next is 28144, a Salisbury zip code, with 99 cases. Zip code 28146, which includes part of Salisbury and some of eastern Rowan, has 57 positive cases.