COVID-19 outbreak identified in New Hanover County child care facility

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover County has set a record with its highest daily case count of COVID-19 to date, with an additional 53 new cases reported, including a cluster at a child care facility.

A cluster is defined by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services as five or more cases with linkage between cases in licensed and regulated child care and school settings.

Milestones Learning Center informed New Hanover County Public Health of an employee who had a positive lab result for COVID-19 on Monday. The individual did not work in a classroom and had last been at the facility on Thursday, June 11.

Parents and guardians were notified and the center began testing all staff. In the following days, a subsequent five other cases among asymptomatic staff and children were confirmed. The facility made the decision to close until further notice.

“Child care facilities in New Hanover County have done a great job of following guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their establishments and we appreciate Milestones’ quick work in informing our public health team and the families they serve of the cases they learned of connected to their facility,” said Public Health Assistant Director Carla Turner, RN, MSHCA in a news release. “We can expect to see more outbreaks and clusters with increased activity across our community coupled with individuals not following the three W’s – Wear, Wait, Wash. If we follow protective measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, we protect those around us and prevent further spread into settings like child care, nursing homes or congregate living facilities.”

Public Health is conducting contact tracing to identify close contacts and inform those who may have been exposed so they can quarantine and be tested, which helps contain the spread of the virus.

Public Health will continue to monitor the situation and provide support and guidance to child care facilities in the county. Starting Tuesday,  the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will begin reporting clusters of COVID-19 in child care settings, and those reports will be found at NCDHHS.gov.