Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

It’s been another deadly week locally and across the state due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Medical complications caused by the virus claimed the lives of eight local residents this week, raising the collective death toll to 112 in the Roanoke-Chowan area.

Three of this week’s deaths have been in Gates County.

According to Albemarle Regional Health Services (ARHS), two were in the 50-64 year age range and the other individual was over the age of 65. ARHS officials said all of those deaths are associated with a facility outbreak at Accordius Health and Rehabilitation. There, as of Friday (Dec. 4), 48 residents and 18 staff members have tested positive for the virus, four times the number reported at that facility last week.

Bertie County lost two citizens this week to COVID-19. ARHS reported both were over the age of 65 and were attributed to facility outbreaks at The Brian Center and Three Rivers Health and Rehabilitation, both located in Windsor.

Three Rivers, where there have been five total deaths, currently lists 34 residents and 19 staff members testing positive for COVID. The Brian Center has 33 current cases (23 residents and 10 staff). Three residents have died there from COVID-19.

ARHS also received notification this week confirming an additional death associated with COVID-19 in a Hertford County resident. The individual was over the age of 65 and not associated with a facility outbreak.

Two lives were lost this week in Northampton County due to the virus.

Since the outbreak began in March, there have been 112 COVID-related deaths in the Roanoke-Chowan area (42 in Hertford County; 36 in Northampton; 26 in Bertie; and eight in Gates County).

As of Dec. 4, Bertie County had 116 active cases of the virus; Northampton had 99; Hertford had 51; and Gates had 32.

The number of active cases locally have dramatically increased over the past seven days: 47 in Bertie; 43 in Northampton; 41 in Hertford; and 24 in Gates.

Meanwhile, the number of recoveries from the virus continues to rise. Since the start of the pandemic, 926 have recovered in Hertford County; 795 in Bertie; 752 in Northampton; and 203 in Gates.

Statewide, the Department of Health and Human Services said on Thursday there were 5,637 new cases, which set a new record. The state reached another record the same day with 2,101 hospitalized due to complications with the virus. The state death toll stood at 5,467.