Greene County’s positivity rate for COVID-19 cases continues to increase.

Over two weeks ago, the County positivity rate was 3.2-percent for COVID-19 cases and last week the rate had grown to over eight-percent for the past 14-days. As of Tuesday, the state dashboard reports Greene County to be at a seven-percent positivity rate with 72 confirmed cases. Greene County Public Health Director Becky Wolf explains what they believe has led to the large swing in the county’s positivity rate.

“Number one, a large number of wedding receptions and gatherings have occurred. Invariably, people are gathering and they’re not wearing masks and the virus is spreading. The next thing is kids returning to college. I think the other thing is that we’re seeing more community spread. Right now, with all of the dry weather that we’ve had – except for the last few days – the allergens have kicked up, and people’s allergies are just going insane.”

Wolf notes that since allergy symptoms are similar to COVID-19 symptoms, as people were being tested, some of those tests came back positive for the virus instead of allergies. While Wolf isn’t surprised to see the positive case numbers increase, she expects it to continue an upward trend following the Labor Day holiday.