Overton Health Department Reports 24 COVID Deaths Over Past Month

Twenty-four Overton County residents have died over the last month because of COVID.

Overton County Health Department Director Andy Langford at a Friday press conference said the deaths are three to four times more than compared to a month ago.

“We’re right in the middle of an Omicron surge,” Langford said. “We’re still seeing some Delta out there, but the majority of what we are seeing is the omicron strain.”

Langford said currently about one out of every three people tested for COVID test positive.

According to Langford, the county has seen a large increase in COVID cases since December. On December 8th of 2021, the county had 86 active cases. Langford said on January 8th, cases numbers stood at 323 active cases.

“We’re approximately 22 new cases per day,” Langford said. “One of the things we try to look at is what we call positivity rate or infection rate. On January 6th, 70 tests that we did through the health department 44 percent were positive.

Livingston Regional Hospital CEO Tim McGill said the facility is experiencing a third surge of COVID patients. Langford said he expects numbers to continually rise for sometime as the virus reaches rural areas.