The Superior Express -

South Heartland District Health Department (SHDHD) officials reported 11new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases for the past seven days, bringing the total number of cases in the four-county health district to 461. By county, the totals are 384 in Adams, 58 in Clay, 11 in Webster, and eight in Nuckolls. The new cases include:

Adams County: one female in her 20s; seven males (two in their 20s, three in their 40s, one in his 50s, one in his 70s)

Clay County: two males (one in his 50s, one his 70s)

Nuckolls County: one female in her 50s

Michele Bever, SHDHD's executive director, reported on the health district's positive test rate or positivity (number of positive lab reports divided by the total number of lab reports) for the week of Aug. 9 through 15. "The positivity rate helps to answer the question 'what percent of the people who are tested are actually infected with the virus that causes COVID-19?' It helps us understand how much this virus is spreading in our health district," Bever said.

"There were 388 COVID-19 test results that came back to SHDHD last week. Of these, 17 (4.4 percent) were positive, down from 7.5 percent the previous week," she said.

Bever said the department is tracking three-week averages to get a better picture of the positivity trends. "This is called a three-week rolling average," she said. "We've seen a steady trend up in the three-week rolling averages for positivity since mid-June, from a low of 1.6 percent to a high of 5.7 percent two weeks ago. The three-week rolling average for last week decreased slightly to 5.5 percent, breaking an eight-week upward trend."

Bever said residents can help decrease the overall risk for spread of COVID-19 in their communities by reducing opportunities for the virus to spread from person to person. "This means keeping physically distanced from others, wearing cloth face coverings when we are around others, staying home when we have any symptoms, washing our hands, and disinfecting frequently-touched surfaces," she said. "The goal is to keep our positive cases low and to keep our students and teachers at school," she said.

Officials also noted a correction to SHDHD's website and COVID-19 dashboard: a case originally attributed to Webster County was reassigned to the correct county (Adams).

South Heartland District case counts and trends can be found on SHDHD's dashboard of local COVID-19 case statistics. This dashboard, along with updates, guidance, news releases and other COVID-19 information and links can be found on the SHDHD website: http://www.southheartlandhealth.org. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provides daily updates to Nebraska's coronavirus COVID-19 cases on their Data Dashboard at http://dhhs.ne.gov/Pages/Coronavirus.