Lancaster County for the second consecutive day reported its highest number of new positive COVID-19 tests with the caseload added Thursday nearly equivalent to those reported all last week.
Local health officials began contact tracing for 44 new patients confirmed to have the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The 22% increase brought the county's total to 237 cases Thursday afternoon.Â
On Wednesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts and interim Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department Director Pat Lopez, along with Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird, announced they would extend restrictions on businesses only through May 11.
After that, they hoped to put in looser rules to reopen certain close-contact businesses like barbershops and allow restaurants to resume limited dine-in service.
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With the dynamic nature of the pandemic though, nothing is ever certain, Lopez said.
"We can't predict what the next five days are," Lopez said, "so we're going to stay steadfast in monitoring all those measures that we've discussed like the positivity rate, contact tracing, our health care capacity and others to see what's going to be the best thing for our community."
Gaylor Baird on Wednesday said she and Lopez reserved the right to change course if the situation on the ground dictates that.
If plans move ahead as expected May 11, Lancaster County would join 59 other counties in Nebraska that will ease restrictions beginning Monday, including the Omaha area, where case numbers are also climbing.
At his Thursday afternoon news briefing, Ricketts said changing course remained the Lincoln mayor's right.
"She can certainly do that," Ricketts said. "It's within her purview."
For example, Ricketts pointed to the move by Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert to close city parks earlier this month over concerns of large gatherings and violence.
While concerning, Gaylor Baird said the recent increases were not unexpected as testing capacity continued to increase.
Testing at the two drive-thru clinics in Lincoln doubled their daily capacity Wednesday to 300 tests per day and also had set a new daily record of 175 tests administered, she said.
Over 14% of the 810 tests administered this week have returned positive results in Lancaster County, according to the health department.
This measure has slowly risen in Lancaster County over the last several weeks, but the county's overall rate of positive tests, 6.2%, remained lower than the state and national averages, according to the health department.
To date, Lancaster County has reported one death from COVID-19.
Lincoln's hospitals cared for 38 hospitalized COVID-19 patients Thursday, including eight Lancaster County residents, Lopez said. Of the 38, six needed ventilators.
While she didn't give specifics, Lopez said many of the reported 237 cases no longer are infectious. Her staff plan to begin reporting those numbers by early next week.
Reporting recoveries from the viral disease wasn't initially feasible, Lopez said.Â
Early on, the only guidelines defining a recovery were from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and required a patient to test negative several times, and initially, testing capacity in Lancaster County remained so limited that extra tests didn't seem prudent, she said.Â
And staff who had been working to follow up with residents recovering from COVID-19 have since switched to helping investigate who new patients have been in contact with since the caseload doubled.
Lopez and Gaylor Baird encourage anyone experiencing symptoms to seek testing at one of the drive-thru clinics in Lincoln.Â
Symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, shortness of breath, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat or loss of taste or smell.
Residents remain at risk of exposure to the virus every time they're in the community, so they should remain home as much as possible and wear a face covering when out in public, Gaylor Baird said.
"Our Lincoln residents have done an amazing job of flattening the curve," Gaylor Baird said. "Yet we cannot let our guard down even as we discuss how we might ease our current restrictions."