Seven new positive cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Howard County on Tuesday, August 18.

According to health-department officials, 72 positive cases have been confirmed since the beginning of the pandemic. Two more persons were released from observation as recovered on Tuesday, increasing that total to 52, leaving 20 active cases of the virus in the county.

Health-department officials say: “We have had several questions regarding surveillance screening for COVID-19. Screening and surveillance testing are very valuable tools for testing for a disease in apparently healthy people. It allows us to identify asymptomatic infectious individuals who would otherwise not be aware that they were positive, and hopefully help to stop unknowingly spread the disease. It is a good thing for public health in that knowing apparently healthy people are infectious, we are then able to ask the positive person to self-isolate and to identify close contacts who might also be at risk and ask them to self-isolate as well in order to help protect the public.”