Testing surge… Large, steady line files through COVID-19 testing at Health Department
Published 3:52 pm Monday, October 19, 2020
File Photo
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders Nurses with the Carter County Health Department were kept busy on Monday doing COVID-19 test at the tent set up across from the Health Department.
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BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR STAFF
ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com
It was 12:45 on Monday, an hour and 45 minutes past the normal closing time of the COVID-19 testing facility at the Carter County Health Department and it took blocking the entrance to the facility with saw horses set up across the street from First Baptist Church to stem the large tide of those seeking COVID-19 test on Monday.
According to those who had been working the early voting lines for candidates across the street from the Carter County Election Commission, the line waiting to enter the test facility had been larger than the line waiting to go into the early vote with cars backed up to the intersection of South Lynn Avenue and G Street for most of the morning.
These lines still signaled the caution and concern of local residents who either were directed to the facility by physicians or out of their own concern to see if they possibly had contracted the coronavirus that continues to show signs of another alarming increase across the state.
Numbers from the Tennessee Department of Health on Monday show there are 318 new COVID-19 cases and one new death attributed to the pandemic in Northeast Tennessee.
That number was significant in that it marked a tie for the largest one-day increase in cases reported in Northeast Tennessee and represented an increase of 242 cases since Sunday.
According to the report, 17 new cases were reported in Carter County bringing the county’s numbers to 1,415 total cases with 129 active cases, and 32 deaths in the county attributed to the coronavirus.
Neighboring Washington and Sullivan Counties reported the largest increase in Northeast Tennessee with 89 new cases in Washington bringing the total of active cases to 454 and 85 new cases in Sullivan causing that county’s active total to rise to 656.
Greene County reported 64 cases while Johnson County added 26 new cases and Unicoi County 18.
Statewide, there have been 232,061 cases of COVID-19 which is an increase of 3,317 since Sunday.
Those cases have led to a total of 2,922 deaths statewide which increased by 13 since Sunday.
