New deaths and active cases were reported as of Thursday due to the New Year holiday.
The dead, 11 women and seven men, were between 60 and 90 years old and were from 12 different counties: Barnes, Burleigh, Cass, Nelson, Morton, Pembina, Ramsey, Ransom, Rolette, Ward, Wells and Williams.
The state also reported 127 new cases of COVID-19 from yesterday’s total. The county of Cass de Fargo totaled 43 new cases while the county of Burleigh de Bismarck reported 15 new cases. Both Morton County Mandan and Ward de Minot County reported 10 new cases.
Devsey Lake’s Ramsey County added seven new cases. Rolette, Stark and Williams counties each recorded five new cases.
Four or less new cases have been reported in Barnes, Benson, Dickey, Dunn, Eddy, Grand Forks, Griggs, LaMoure, McKenzie, McLean, Mercer, Ransom, Richland, Stutsman, Traill and Walsh.
The new positive cases emerged from 4,845 tests for a daily positivity rate of 2.91%, the department said.
Active cases remained below 2,000, with 1,999 reported in North Dakota on Saturday. It is the eighth consecutive day of active cases below 2,000, a stretch not seen in the state since the end of August.
Cass County had the highest number of active cases on Saturday, at 428, although the number fell 19% last week. It is the sixth consecutive week that the state’s most populous county has seen a reduction in the number of active cases.
Burleigh County registered 269 active cases on Saturday, while Grand Forks County reported 128, both small drops from last week.
Ward County’s 163 active cases represented a small increase from last Saturday’s total.
The only other county with three-digit active cases on Saturday was Jamestown’s Stutsman County, which posted 111 active cases.
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Williston’s Williams County reported a 36% reduction in active cases last week, dropping from 121 to 78. Active cases fell 20% in Morton County in the last week from 112 to 90.
Rural Dickey County, in the southeastern corner of North Dakota, leads the state with 70 active cases per 10,000 residents, despite having a total of 34 active cases on Saturday.
Two rural counties in the western part of the state, Divide and Oliver, reported no active cases on Saturday.
Across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 19,663,976 cases of COVID-19 and 341,199 deaths attributed to the virus.
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