Health officials encourage taking precautions as COVID cases spike in region

The Southeast Missourian reports that on Friday the director of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, Jane Wernsman, laid out in stark terms the most recent toll taken by COVID-19, backed up by the center’s medical director and the leaders of the SoutheastHEALTH and Saint Francis Medical Center hospital systems. She said our COVID-19 case counts have been increasing exponentially over the past month, and especially the past two weeks. The rolling 14-day case count is at 1,249, or an average of 89 new cases a day, but the county had seen more than 100 cases in 2 days last week. She urged that people need to continue to practice the measures that can decrease transmission. You can learn more in the Southeast Missourian.