UPDATE: Friday evening, health officials updated the number of positive cases in Grays Harbor County to 43.

By Doug Barker

The Daily World

An uptick in positive Covid-19 tests in the past two weeks has pushed the total for Grays Harbor County to 43 cases. Eleven days earlier, at the end of June, the total was 27, dating from when the county health department started keeping track in March.

In the first 10 days of July, there have been 16 cases, according to the county’s Covid-19 website. That’s already the highest case total for the county of any month since the pandemic started. There were 10 in both April and June.

It’s unclear what the numbers mean and what might account for the uptick. County health officials weren’t available for comment on Friday and released no other information on Friday.

Grays Harbor Community Hospital spokesman Christopher Majors said the hospital has been doing more tests at its drive-up testing station in the past week or so, but that could be because Summit Pacific Medical Center has stopped offering drive-up tests there. At mid-day on Friday, the hospital had already done 24 tests at the drive-up station, close to a four-fold increase in what it had been doing lately, Majors said.

A recent hospital Facebook post alerting people to the drive-up testing could also account for some of the higher test numbers.

Majors said he’s not aware of any current hospitalizations for Covid-19 at Community Hospital.