Health officials announced Park County’s third COVID-19-related death on Tuesday, saying the virus caused or contributed to the death of a Cody man earlier this month.

“This was a middle-aged male who had not been hospitalized and was not known to have medical conditions that put him at risk,” Park County Health Officer Dr. Aaron Billin said in a Facebook post.

Combined with other deaths in Fremont, Johnson and Albany counties that the Wyoming Department of Health also reported on Tuesday, there are now 61 state residents determined to have died in connection with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. That’s more than double the number of deaths that were attributed to the worst flu season in Wyoming in recent decades, State Health Officer Alexia Harrist said Wednesday.

More deaths could be added to the total soon, as the Lovell Chronicle reported today (Thursday) that five residents at the New Horizons Care Center died this week amid a COVID-19 outbreak. The deaths are among more than 9,800 confirmed and probable cases documented by the state since March, including 481 in Park County.

As of Wednesday, there were 186 confirmed or probable cases in the county classified as active infections, according to state data, while Dr. Billin, who uses a slightly different methodology, listed 119 active cases and 10 hospitalizations late Tuesday; state data indicated that four patients were being treated at Powell Valley Healthcare and four at Cody Regional Health on Tuesday.

The number of active cases in the county has increased roughly tenfold since mid-September, with infections spiking significantly since the first week of October. As of Wednesday, there had been 197 confirmed or probable cases identified in the prior 14 days — roughly the same number of cases Park County saw in the first six months of the pandemic.

Speaking of his own workload, Dr. Billin said Tuesday that it had been “a very busy week with the increased cases.”

“Contact tracing shows that the increase in COVID-19 in Park County is largely due to community transmission” where there’s no clear point of origin, Billin wrote in a Facebook comment. “This means that the virus that is already in our community [and] spreads largely due to not wearing masks and not social distancing.”

He added that, “very few businesses in Park County have not been affected at this point.”

On Wednesday, Northwest College President Stefani Hicswa reported a cluster of COVID-19 cases “among a group of epidemiologically linked students living in the residence halls.”

“To mitigate the spread on campus, we have isolated COVID positive students in designated apartments and quarantined in place those individuals in close contact,” Hicswa said, adding that staffers are checking in on and assisting the students frequently. A total of seven active cases were reported within the NWC “campus community” on Wednesday, with 15 other people in quarantine.

“Through your diligent efforts to follow our COVID protocols, we will continue to ensure that the College will stay open through Thanksgiving,” Hicswa said in a message to students and staff.

Meanwhile, in Powell’s K-12 schools, there were four active cases — three at the high school and one at the elementary school level — with 30 students and staff in quarantine as of Wednesday afternoon. In some good news, Park County School District No. 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis said they’ve found no cases that were transmitted at school and “none of those quarantined from exposure at school have become positive cases.”

“This means that the systems we have in place are doing their job to a very large extent. However, I am not sure we can keep this thing at bay a whole lot longer without an all-out community effort,” Curtis cautioned, urging people to follow CDC recommendations to help allow face-to-face instruction to continue.

On Monday, the Cody school district reported 43 students and nine staff members were in quarantine or isolation.

Meanwhile, the Park County Assessor’s Office was shuttered Wednesday after Assessor Pat Meyer tested positive. Meyer said he developed a cough and a little bit of a headache, and didn’t think much of it. However, he decided to get tested on Tuesday because he had a friend coming into town who has underlying health conditions.

“I have no clue how I got it,” Meyer said Wednesday. His staffers all planned to undergo precautionary testing and the office was undergoing a deep cleaning. Employees were going to work remotely this week with tentative plans to reopen the office on Monday, Oct. 26 — with new protocols that will include more mask-wearing, Meyer said.

“I think we’ve got to start doing more,” he said.

Most people with COVID-19 suffer flu-like symptoms, if any symptoms at all, and recover on their own. However, the new coronavirus can cause serious health problems — posing a particular risk to older residents and those with underlying health conditions.

Park County’s two prior deaths related to COVID-19 involved older people: A Meeteetse woman who’d been living at a Billings nursing home died in late July while an elderly Powell man who had health conditions placing him at risk of complications from the coronavirus died in September.

At a Wednesday press conference, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon described the recent surge in cases as “not a curve; it is more or less a straight line headed upwards.”

Dr. Harrist again encouraged residents to stay home when “even just a little sick,” to keep distance from non-household members whenever possible and to wear a mask when close contact is necessary and to wash hands frequently and thoroughly.

Both she and Gordon expressed hope that Wyoming residents can slow the spread of the disease by taking personal responsibility and following public health orders and guidelines.

“We’ve lost our discipline, we’re a little bit scattered at this point and it’s, in my belief, up to us to make sure we get this spread under control,” Gordon said. Curtis said Wednesday that he knows some of the public health recommendations — namely face coverings — have become political issues.

However, “I just can’t get bogged down in that, or let the district get bogged down in that, as we have 1,800 students and all of their parents that rely on us to provide the best public education we can,” he said, citing the value of in-person instruction, athletics and activities. “We just can’t get it done without help from everyone,” Curtis said.