Three Park County residents tested postive for COVID-19 on Thursday and Friday.

In a news release issued late Friday afternoon, the county’s incident management team said there are “several potential cases connected to” the new cases, which were identified at Powell Valley Healthcare. Health officials said they’ve been working to determine who the infected people came into contact with.

All three people are now self-quarantined at home, Park County Health Officer Dr. Aaron Billin said in a late Friday night Facebook post, adding that, “None of these new cases appear to be tied to tourists or the opening of Yellowstone National Park.”

In a Friday interview, Park County Public Health Nurse Manager Bill Crampton said one confirmed case involved an agricultural worker from outside the area. Crampton said he was also aware of a local oil field worker testing positive at Powell Valley Healthcare; the man reportedly had contact with an infected person while working in another area, Crampton said.

He said there was no apparent connection between those two cases. Both men are in self-quarantine, he added, along with the spouse of the local worker.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the two cases referenced by Crampton were among the three confirmed cases referenced in the news release. The incident management team said it would release more information “as it becomes available.”

In the meantime, Park County officials are asking residents to “remain diligent” in taking health precautions.

“We understand that everyone is tired of restrictions,” the release said, “however, the health of our economy depends on our citizens’ willingness to act responsibly at this time.”

Health officials are continuing to ask people to stay home when sick, wash their hands vigorously, wear masks when they have to come within 6 feet of other people and to cough into their sleeves.

“We live with viruses all day, every day. They’re all over, we breathe them in and out. And many times we don’t get sick from them,” Crampton said. “So, you know, that’s the battle we’re fighting right now,” he said — that some people infected with COVID-19 will not become ill. He said the agricultural worker had only reported a slight fever and the oil field worker felt “fine” at the time he was tested.

“That’s why we have so much pushback,” Crampton said, adding that, “they’re right, people aren’t getting sick, but if that person who tested positive goes to visit their parents in [an] extended care facility or … like the [Rocky Mountain] Manor, and passes it on to them, they might be much more susceptible to it. And that’s the hard part about things you can’t see.”

The new coronavirus produces mild or moderate flu-like symptoms in most people, but it can cause serious illness or, in rare cases, death. It poses a particular threat to the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. As of Friday, Wyoming had reported 18 deaths among 811 lab-confirmed cases in the state since the pandemic began. Uinta County has experienced a recent spike, with 46 new cases confirmed over the past week.

The Uinta County Public Health Department has said it appears many of the cases “are connected to some events or gatherings that took place over Memorial Day weekend.”

“We’ve got to work to level this out,” the Uinta County officials wrote on Facebook last week, encouraging social distancing and other preventative measures. “It has a lot of potential to grow quickly.”

Meanwhile, officials in neighboring Big Horn County received confirmation of two new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, making it five new cases there in less than a week.

One part of the challenge in combatting the spread of COVID-19 is that it can take as long as 14 days for an infected person to begin showing symptoms — but the person can spread the disease before realizing that they’re ill. There is also some thought that people can become infected and spread the novel coronavirus without ever feeling sick (being fully asymptomatic).

While Park County still has a relatively low number of known cases, the three new cases represent a notable jump. Up until Thursday, only two other county residents had been confirmed to have been infected: a Cody woman in March and a Powell woman in May, and they had both already recovered. Until the newly confirmed cases, Park County had the lowest rate of cases in the state on a per capita basis. Health officials have attributed that in part to the precautions  put in place, but have also expressed surprise, given that Park County is a relatively large county and a tourism destination.

In an effort to detect any local outbreaks early on, Park County officials are testing the City of Cody’s sewage (with Powell and Meeteetse potentially added in the future) and have begun testing employees at businesses that have a lot of interaction with tourists.

Nine employees at three Cody businesses were tested on Friday and all of them tested negative for COVID-19, Billin said on Sunday.

The Park County Incident Management Team said in a Wednesday news release that it “is hopeful that the county can open up for tourist season and remain open all summer long with the implementation of this two-pronged approach as well as our partnership with area businesses and the community’s continued commitment to infection control.”

Park County Health Officer Dr. Aaron Billin said county leaders and officials in Yellowstone National Park also have plans for “backing up” and reinstating more restrictions if the situation worsens.

“... you can’t move forward without the realization that something may happen that you have to back up,” Billin told county commissioners on Tuesday.

Crampton said Friday that the county would have to tighten up restrictions if there were “a whole bunch” of new cases, which has not yet happened.

“The big thing right now is that we continue to monitor” the COVID-19 situation, he said.

In a late Friday afternoon Facebook post announcing the three new cases in Powell, the Park County Public Health Department said the news was “not meant to scare anyone, merely to make people aware that the virus is in Park County and it is ever important for everyone to be diligent in their actions.”