16 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Garfield County on Thursday

A Centers for Disease Control illustration of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

This post will be updated daily.

Garfield County had 16 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus as of Thursday afternoon, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Due to the limited availability of testing, not every potential case of COVID-19 will be tested, so the number of actual cases is likely higher.

Across Colorado, 184 people had been hospitalized by Thursday, and there were 24 deaths in the state attributed to COVID-19. Those figures were not broken down by County.

County health officials ask people to assume that the new coronavirus is spreading through the community, but the county will not release the town where persons have tested positive to protect the private health information of COVID-19 patients.

The state health department is counting cases where patients with COVID-19 symptoms and contact with other confirmed cases as positive, even if there hasn’t been a formal test done by the state.

“This new format, which will initially show a jump in COVID-19 cases in Garfield County, assumes that symptomatic individuals who have had close contact with people that have lab-confirmed COVID-19, also have COVID-19,” the Garfield County Department of Public Health said in a press release.

via:: Post Independent