“However, we are very happy to share that two of the Okanogan County cases have fully recovered.”

Okanogan County Public Health

Emergency Management to broadcast update on their Facebook tomorrow at 7 p.m

OKANOGAN – According to the latest update from Okanogan County Public Health the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 has climbed to 10 as of Tuesday, April 7. Public health has also confirmed that two people have fully recovered from the Novel Coronavirus.

While 10 people have tested positive for the virus out of the 256 samples that have been sent for testing, 211 tests were negative and 43 test results are still pending.

Statewide, the state Department of Health says 87,818 people have been tested for COVID-19 with 8,682 testing positive and 394 deaths. There are no reports of anyone dying from COVID-19 in Okanogan County.

Okanogan County Public Health is reported one new case since the prior update. Cases are from the following parts of the county: five from the Colville Reservation, four from the Methow Valley and one from the south part of the county.

“Understandably, we are getting requests to share the number of cases that have recovered. For several reasons, this is a difficult statistic to track so we will not be able to report this on a daily basis,” reads the Okanogan County Public Health update, which was also shared over the Okanogan County Emergency Management Alert system. “However, we are very happy to share that two of the Okanogan County cases have fully recovered.”

Public Health said that the county and state are not out of the woods yet and emphasized that social distancing must continue to help slow the spread.

“We are starting see headlines from around the state that look like ‘New UW analysis lowers coronavirus death projections and suggests hospitalizations may have already peaked in Washington,’” writes county Public Health. “This is fantastic news and shows that all of the difficult decisions we have had to make are really making a difference.”

The agency said the news was encouraging because “we began taking social distancing measures very early in Okanogan County. But, we need to remember that Eastern Washington’s curve is 2-3 weeks behind Western Washington.”

They added, “Okanogan County case numbers are still small relative to many other counties, but they are continuing to rise on a daily basis. We must continue these social distancing measures in order to minimize the number of people who get sick, are hospitalized and die.”

The alert went on to advise people not to flush wipes.

“Please do not flush disinfecting wipes, paper towels or flushable wipes….Throw them away instead! Flushing disinfecting wipes, flushable wipes, paper towels and similar products will clog sewer mainlines and cause backups and overflows at the treatment plant, disrupting service and creating unnecessary public health risk,” reads the alert. “Even though the package says ‘flushable.’ Flushable wipes clog pipes, plug pumps and interfere with sewage collections. Wipes and paper towels do not break down like toilet paper. Throw these in the garbage instead!”

Okanogan County Emergency Management will be broadcasting more on the COVID-19 situation live, Wednesday, April 8 at 7 p.m. on the Emergency Management Facebook.