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Stanly County hit a grim milestone Wednesday as it past 500 known coronavirus cases. The county officially had 515 cases, including 111 that are still active, according to the county health department.

The death total has remained at five people for several weeks while 11 people are currently hospitalized, though not all of them are at Atrium Health Stanly. A total of 399 people have recovered from the virus.

The rapid increase in the amount of cases in Stanly County has been most pronounced over the past month. The county has experienced a 326 percent increase since June 10, when there were only 121 reported cases.

Stanly’s three highest one-day case totals since the pandemic began several months ago occurred over the past few weeks — on June 22, 43 cases were reported, on June 27, there were 25 cases, and on July 3, 26 cases were reported, according to data compiled by the state’s Health and Human Services.

Much of the surge over the last several weeks has come from Albemarle Correctional Institution, where 96 inmates and 17 staff members have tested positive for the virus.

There have been seven other outbreaks in the county, including recent ones at Stanly Manor, where two staff members have tested positive, and Trinity Place, where two staff members have tested positive.

In passing the 500-mark, Stanly joins a litany of neighboring counties including Mecklenburg, which has more than 13,000 cases, along with Cabarrus, Rowan, Union and Davidson, which each have well over 1,000 cases.

According to a Harvard University interactive COVID risk assessment map, that charts coronavirus risks by state and county according to the number of new cases per 100,000 people over the last seven days, Stanly ranks sixth in the state as of Thursday with 23.4 new cases per day.

The percentage of tests that are positive in Stanly is currently eight percent, which is a sharp decrease from the beginning of the month, when it was near 20 percent, and is below many of its neighboring counties and the state as a whole (10 percent), according to state data.

At least 77,310 people in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus and 1,441 have died, according to data from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. Almost 1.1 million tests have also been completed. The state had its single highest one-day total on July 3, when 2,099 cases were reported.

The demographic numbers have stayed relatively constant in Stanly, with people ages 25 to 49 being the group most likely to contract the virus (43 percent of all cases) followed by those ages 50 to 64 (26 percent). Also white people have accounted for 65 percent of cases followed by Black people with 30 percent.