Grand Forks, ND The New COVID-19 Hot Spot
Coronavirus cases are trending lower in 49 of the 50 states, that would be the good news. The bad news? Burleigh County has been leading the state in new cases for much of August. Well, Grand Forks County just went flying past Burleigh county in a big way. According to the New York Times, Grand Forks, North Dakota is one of the biggest hot spots for new COVID-19 cases. It currently ranks #6 in the nation. In comparison, New York city ranks at #282.
Tuesday, August 25th the North Dakota Department of Health reported 110 new cases in Grand Forks County alone. This as 10,000 plus new students started classes at the University of North Dakota. A very popular pizza place in Grand Forks, Rhombus Guys just closed their doors due to staff with COVID-19. The big number jump in Grand Forks reflects mass testing at UND. Thousands of new students coming from all over the country, I guess you could say the big jump is not a big surprise. You can also expect that the majority of those cases reported from UND students are asymptomatic, not requiring medical attention. When they mass test NDSU students, you can expect a big jump for Cass County too.
Burleigh County reported 38 cases on Tuesday, while Morton County only reported 3. However, Morton County also reported 1 new death unfortunately. The daily positivity rate jumped to 7.4 percent which is obviously very high. With all that bad news, there still only remains 50 people hospitalized in the state which is a very low number.
I think it's important to look at the big picture. Again, 49 of the 50 states are trending downward. This is just a bump in the road for North Dakota.
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