By Natalie Anderson
natalie.anderson@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — On Monday, county officials reported an additional six individuals tested positive for COVID-19 and one died after 12 new tests reported.

A total of 480 individuals have tested positive in the county and the one additional death came from a former resident at the Citadel nursing home, located on Julian Road, bringing the total death count to 26. There have been 18 deaths at the Citadel alone. At least 2,866 tests have been conducted, 197 individuals have recovered and 13 are currently being hospitalized.

With only 12 new tests reported Monday, county government spokesperson TJ Brown said reporting positive cases to the state is mandatory but reporting negative results is optional. Thus, some entities may choose to report their negative results to the state while some others opt not to. Of what’s been officially reported, Rowan County’s COVID-19 positive race has hovered between 15% and 17% in recent weeks.

“At the end of the day, we know there is more testing that’s being done that we aren’t able to share with everyone,” Brown said.

Testing results are reported to the state, Brown said, and then respective county health departments are notified of the test results that were reported.

Rowan County, like other counties across the state, is awaiting state guidance and plans to expand testing, which Brown anticipates should be released some time this week.

Statewide, 15,045 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 after 195,865 tests have been conducted. A total of 550 individuals have died and 464 are currently being hospitalized.

Brown also emphasized safe child care as child care facilities are among the essential businesses able to reopen under Gov. Roy Cooper’s Phase One reopening plan. Child care facilities that wish to reopen must first complete the “COVID-19 Child Care Reopening Application,” which can be found at ncchildcare.ncdhhs.gov, within 48 hours of reopening. Child care centers that remained open during the stay-at-home order aren’t required to complete the application unless they closed after submitting their emergency application.

The application will include step-by-step instructions to guide facilities through a process of consultation on a plan to meet updated health and safety guidelines.

In other COVID-19 statistics:

• Individuals aged 65 and older make up the plurality of cases, at 159, and ages 51-64 are currently at 95 cases. However, ages 36-50 and 18-35 continue to climb at 110 and 105 cases, respectively. A total of 11 cases are among children younger than 18 years old.
• Of the positive cases, 313 individuals are white, 120 are black or African American, three are Asian, one is American Indian/Alaskan Native, 99 are Hispanic, 23 are unknown and 20 are other.
• Females still make up the majority of positive cases, at 260, while males represent 220 positive cases.
• Zip code 28147 remains the area of the county with the most positive cases, at 219, which is where the Citadel nursing home is located. Next is 28144, a Salisbury zip code, with 116 cases. Zip code 28146, which includes part of Salisbury and a large swath of eastern Rowan, currently has 61 positive cases.

Contact reporter Natalie Anderson at 704-797-4246.