WILMINGTON, Del. (KYW Newsradio) — Delaware has seen an uptick in coronavirus cases throughout September. Now, officials are singling out Wilmington as a recent hotspot for the virus.
There have been more than 80 new cases in Wilmington over the past two weeks.
“It’s not alarming.” said Dr. Karyl Rattay, director of Delaware’s Division of Public Health. “But you see the trend going upwards. And you also see when you look at percent positive, compared to what we’re seeing in the state, you see this zip code is higher than the rest of the state.”
That percent positive in Wilmington is around 9%. The state average is around 7%.
“Previously, we might not have responded to a community where we’ve seen slight increases,” added Rattay, “but where we are right now, we really want to respond.”
That response includes adding more testing sites to Wilmington, on top of all the additional sites that were recently added throughout the state, as well as beefing up community outreach and education on things such as masks and social distancing.
“But also making sure people know who should get tested and where to get tested. And also making sure, especially since we’re seeing spread in households, making sure people who have a positive test result, that they safely isolate,” Rattay said.
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The DPH says this Wilmington spread is actually happening more in homes, and it isn’t being attributed to a particular event or gathering.
Gov. John Carney, who lives in Wilmington, blames complacency.
“I’ll give you a perfect example,” he said. “West Center City, I go down there to get on and off the freeway, and there’s a convenience store at Seventh and Washington. And for a lot of times, I would see folks and they would have masks on. More recently, as I’ve driven by there, not a lot of masks on. Just people letting their guard down a little bit.”
The total number of positive cases in Delaware is closing in on 20,000.
Last week, officials released the COVID Alert DE mobile app, hoping to help fight the spread. It’s got around 25,000 downloads during the first week.