Politics

Citing Covid surge, Board of Commissioners cancels Monday meeting

By Lightning Reports, Published: December 30, 2020

Citing the surge in Covid-19 cases, the Henderson County Board of Commissioners has canceled its regularly scheduled meeting of Monday, Jan. 4.

The county, which had avoided a surge in cases experts had projected since March, has seen a big increase in cases since the Thanksgiving holiday.

"The wave of Covid patients that we expected eight months ago didn't happen in March but it's here now," David Ellis, Pardee Hospital's chief medical officer, told reporters on Dec. 23. "Over the past week we've seen the case counts rise dramatically and we don't see that changing in the near future."

The surge in cases vaulted Henderson County from the least severe rating to the most critical — yellow to red. Henderson County was not alone; sixty-five counties across the state are now in the red zone.

Public health officials attributed the increase to family gatherings and other situations in which people had a false sense of safety in socializing with people they knew well.

This week Henderson County had 5,496 Covid-19 cases, the Public Health Department's dashboard said, and has reported more than 150 news cases on several days in December.

Hendersonville made state and national news earlier this month when one of the community's largest churches, First Baptist, saw an outbreak of almost 100 infections after three live performances of a Christmas pageant during which many performers, singers and musicians went maskless.