Ozark County’s COVID cases go from four to seven in a week

(Editor's note: Shortly before 10 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 5, Ozark County Health Department Admisitrator Rhonda Suter posted that Ozark County had a 10th case of COVID-19. No details are available at this time but will be posted as they become available.)

Ozark County’s seventh case of the COVID-19 virus was confirmed Saturday when Bakersfield School superintendent Dr. Amy Britt posted on the school’s website that a student athlete had tested positive for the virus. 

School doesn’t start until Aug. 25 at Bakersfield, but the student had participated in a basketball shootout competition last week in Couch, southeast of West Plains. Britt said the school has worked with the Ozark County Health Department, which has completed contact tracing to notify other students who came in contact with the student athlete. “But at this time, there’s hardly any risk” to students from the other schools who participated in the shootout or to other Bakersfield students who traveled together to the competition on a school bus, Britt said.

“I had a parent ask me if her student should get tested at this point, and I told her, if this were my child in this exact situation, I would have zero concerns if my child had not displayed symptoms,” Britt said.

The school is unaware of any other student or person in Bakersfield who has shown symptoms or tested positive, she said, and it’s been more than 10 days after the July 22 shootout. 

Following guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, the school advised the other Bakersfield students who traveled together to the competition to watch for symptoms, but there was no need to quarantine, Britt said.

CDC guidelines (cdc.gov) say people should quarantine for 14 days (updated versions say 10 days) after having “close contact” with someone who has COVID-19, with “close contact” described as: 

• being within 6 feet of someone who has COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes.

• providing care to someone who is sick with the virus

• having direct physical contact (touching, hugging, kissing)

• sharing eating or drinking utensils

• having a COVID-infected person sneeze or cough on you or deliver respiratory droplets in some other way 

Britt said the students who traveled to the Couch competition were spaced far apart on the school bus that transported them. 

Brenda Hambelton, the designated CDC nurse at the Ozark County Health Department, told the Times Monday that the positive Bakersfield case would remain in quarantine through Friday. 

See page 3 of this week’s Times for Bakers-field School’s adjusted reopening guidelines in response to the pandemic, as well as the reopening plans for Gainesville and Dora schools. The Times has asked Dora School for its reopening plan, and we hope to publish it in an upcoming edition.

Missouri called one of region’s ‘red hot spots’

Now with nearly 53,000 positive COVID cases and 1,255 COVID-related deaths as of Monday, Missouri was described by the University of Kansas Health System last week as “one of the region’s ‘hot red spots,’” according to Sunday’s Kansas City Star, which also said Missouri had the second highest rate of new cases in the country last week, second only to Connecticut.

The pandemic has been relatively slow in impacting Ozark County, and so far that impact has been minor in comparison with surrounding counties – and the rest of the country. The county’s first confirmed case was reported June 19. Its second confirmed case was reported July 2, the third was reported July 20 and the fourth was reported July 22. As the Times went to press Tuesday, July 28, four positive cases had been reported, but shortly after the newspaper’s digital files were uploaded to the printer’s website for production just after noon, OCHD administrator Rhonda Suter posted on her personal Facebook page that a fifth confirmed case had been reported. Pages were pulled back from the printer’s site, updated and resent for printing. Then, on Wednesday afternoon, July 29, Suter announced that a sixth case had been confirmed. That case, she said, “works out of the county and had a work-related exposure.” Close contacts of the person had been notified.

Amy Britt posted Saturday afternoon on the school’s website that the Bakersfield student had tested positive –the county’s seventh confirmed case. 

Suter continues to urge residents to be “proactive and protect yourself, family co-workers and your community” by following good virus-protective measures: washing hands often or using hand sanitizer, maintaining social distance of at least 6 feet and wearing a mask anytime social distancing isn’t possible.

Residents are also reminded to be alert for COVID-19 symptoms, as listed on the CDC.gov website: fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, or diarrhea. If any of these symptoms occur, the next step is to contact a medical provider by phone and follow the provider’s instructions for either self-treatment or coming to a medical facility.