Last week Governor Kim Reynolds lifted some restrictions on businesses and other types of gathering places during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in that time Guthrie County’s number of positive cases has doubled.

While some local stores and restaurants may be welcoming customers back in, Guthrie County Public Health Director Jotham Arber is continuing to urge people to follow social distancing protocol, including keeping six feet apart from others, covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough, washing your hands frequently for 20 seconds with soap and water, and staying home when you are sick, “Guthrie County is still experiencing a rise in COVID-19 cases. We have gone up, we are now at 22 confirmed cases and we’ve had several issues throughout our county with this surging up, so it’s not over yet for us. We are still working towards our peak and we know that the only way to keep people safe is to make sure that we’re following some simple guidelines along the way.”

Arber also recommends residents to continue wearing cloth masks in public to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and not know it from transmitting it to others. Guthrie County Public Health and Emergency Management Agency is providing residents, businesses, and other organizations with resources pertaining to COVID-19 and is updating a tracker of its confirmed cases on their COVID-19 website.