During the meeting of the Pettis County COVID-19 Task Force on Monday, August 16, Pettis County Health Center officials reported there has been an increase of 173 positive cases of COVID-19 in the past week and 357 cases in the past two weeks in the county.

The total number of cases is now 6,237 (since the beginning of the pandemic), as compared to 6,064 cases on August 9 and 5,880 cases on August 2.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ (DHSS) website is reporting Pettis County has a positivity rate of 16.8 percent for the past seven days as compared to 18.5 percent last week with PCR testing. There were 889 PCR tests and 523 antigen tests in the past seven days.

Based on analysis of local data, there were 58 positive cases in June and 601 positive cases in July- an increase of 938 percent. In the cumulative count from July 1 to August 16, there have been 968 positive cases reported. Of those cases, 143 cases- or 19.01 percent of the cases- are in the 0 to 18 age range.

The case counts by age for the time period August 5 to 11 is: Age 0 to 4– 12 cases; 5 to 12– 11 cases; 13 to 18– 18 cases; 19 to 24– 18 cases; 25 to 29– 14 cases; 30 to 34– 11 cases; 35 to 39– 17 cases; 40 to 44– 11 cases; 45 to 49– six cases; 50 to 54– 16 cases; 55 to 59– 17 cases; 60 to 64– 10 cases; 65 to 69– seven cases; 70-74– five cases; 75 to 79– three cases; 80+– four cases.

To assist with continued testing, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is offering free in-home testing. An individual may request test kits at <https://health.mo.gov/living/healthcondiseases/communicable/novel-coronavirus/community-test.php>. Two test kits, good for six months, will be mailed to the requester with a postage-paid envelope to return the sample. You need to scroll to the bottom of the page for the location to order the tests.