Fargo saw the worst of the outbreak early when Cass County reported about 70% of the state’s new infections in April and May. The death rate rose rapidly in Fargo when the virus spread through nursing homes. In all, 76 of the state’s 120 deaths from the disease occurred in Cass County – and most of those deaths were in long-term care facilities.
The Fargo outbreak began to slowly subside at the beginning of the summer after the state imposed regulations on businesses and nursing homes. Pastor Doug Burgum, Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney and other local leaders strongly encourage wearing masks and social distances in the metro area, which is home to about a quarter of a million people.
Burgum also employed a local COVID-19 task force to reduce infection rates and protect residents who may be vulnerable to the disease. In retrospect, Burgum said, those measures worked.
When the Fargo metro area brought the virus under control, the state capital began to see an alarming spike in new infections. By the last week of July, Bismarck was the clear epicenter of COVID-19 in the state.
Burgum has said that the hotspot of the Bismarck area seemed to start after the holiday of July 4, where many residents attended big parties with little or no social distance measures.
Burleigh County now regularly reports most new cases despite having only about half of Cass County’s population. The other part of the Bismarck subway, Morton County, has also witnessed a sharp increase in infections, with positivity figures in the two counties recently doubling the state average.
Thirty-one of the new cases 152 reported by the North Dakota Department of Health on Friday, August 14 came from Burleigh County. Morton County, which includes Mandan, reported 10 new cases. The counties have a combination of 384 active cases – a third of the state’s total.
Sixteen of the new cases reported Friday came from Cass County, bringing his active case to 103.
Meanwhile, infections are growing in sparsely populated western North Dakota. Twenty-five new cases came Friday from Stark County, which includes Dickinson. The province has 113 residents who are known to be infected, the second most of any province in the state.
Bismarck’s metro area is trying to follow in Fargo’s footsteps, as a newly formed COVID-19 task force aims to drive the virus to the ground. The task force met Friday to discuss the way forward, but several members noted that Fargo may have benefits that will not be there for Bismarck.
The outbreaks in Fargo and Bismarck differ greatly in demographics. Protecting vulnerable people and residents of nursing homes has proven much more successful in Bismarck due to the greater precautionary measures taken at individual facilities across the state since the onset of the pandemic. However, the problem group in Bismarck is young adults, specifically 20-somethings, who are much harder to reach with traditional messaging.
Despite approval of masks by Burgum and Mayor Bismarck, Steve Bakken, many younger residents of the city do not take the precaution in public.
One section of the task force is dedicated to promoting marketing efforts that mask and encourage social distance such as the governor’s newly unveiled #MaskUpND campaign, but two doctors in the group, Joan Connell and David Field, plead Friday for a mandatory mask order in Bismarck as the whole state.
Feld said masking mandates play an important role in other parts of the country that have successfully reduced infection rates. Connell noted mask mandates are also taking pressure off companies to make the call that could otherwise result in lost customers. Some companies in the area and throughout the country have implemented mask mandates, but the state’s mask guidelines remain optional.
Burgum has repeatedly rejected the idea of mandating masks, saying the state relies on local decision-making and “individual responsibility.” North Dakota Homeland Security Director Cody Schulz, who is also a Morton County commissioner, told task force members Friday that he thought they should not consider mask mandates.
Earlier Friday, the health department reported that the number of hospital residents was increased by six Friday to 65 – a pandemic high for the state.
The department also reported the death of a Grand Forks County man in the 1990s from the disease. Like the vast majority of North Dakotans who have suffered from the disease, the department reports that the man had underlying health conditions.
The health department says 121 North Dakotans have died from the disease, including 76 Cass County residents, which includes Fargo and West Fargo. Twenty-seven of the dead came in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Four deaths remain in a “presumed positive” category, meaning that a medical professional determined COVID-19 was a cause of death, but the person was not tested for the disease while he or she was alive.
Twenty-nine counties reported at least one case Friday, including many small, rural counties.
About 2.8% of the 5,491 test results announced Friday returned positive, but 6.3% of residents tested positive for the first time.
North Dakota does not regularly report a seven-day rolling average for positivity rate as many other states do, but Forum News Service calculated the rate at 5.8% for tests taken on previously untested residents. It is the highest rate since the beginning of the month.
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