Health Department reports 22 new COVID-19 cases

On Thursday, August 19, the Cloud County Health Department (CCHD) reported 22 new cases of COVID-19.

There are currently 2 hospitalizations in Cloud County.
There have been a total of 55 cases of COVID-19 recorded in Cloud County so far in the month of August.
According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), there are 28 cases with 'variants of concern' in Cloud County. The KDHE defines a variant of concern as a variant for which there is evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease (increased hospitalizations or deaths), a significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures.
13 of those cases are the B.1.617.2 variant, or the Delta variant. The CDC defines the Delta variant as "more contagious than the other virus strains. Delta is the name for a SARS-CoV-2 mutation that originally surfaced in India. The first Delta case was identified in December 2020, and the strain spread rapidly, soon becoming the dominant strain of the virus in both India and then Great Britain.
A recent report from Umassmed.edu stated that, nationwide, the Delta variant accounted for 83% of all new COVID cases in the United States.
The KDHE also identified 15 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, or Alpha variant, in Cloud County. The Alpha variant was first identified in the United Kingdom and quickly spread to the United States, where it became the most prevalent variant in the country before the Delta variant took hold.
Clod County has recorded a total of 1,076 cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak began.
To date, 4,279 negative tests have been administered.