 With over a thousand active Omicron COVID-19 cases and a positivity rate just shy of 25 percent, Pike County Health Department will be implementing a new system to deal with overwhelming case numbers. Tuesday, Mountaintop spoke with Public Health Director Tammy Riley to learn more. Now at this point, we simply are not able to call every patient that's newly reported to us. That has been a challenge for several weeks now, but at this point even data entry on our end, we must get these cases reported, put into the system rather that are reported to us. So just data entry is taking up much of our time. So we're going to look at a new approach for patient contacting and relaying information. As of present, PCHD relies on calling patients one by one to contact trace, but as cases continue to rise, Riley says calling those infected is overwhelming, as some do not wish to be called. If you take the amount of time that it would take to speak even for five to ten minutes in some conversations last much longer than that, but just to speak for five to ten minutes to 180 patients in a day would take a numerous amount of man hours that just is not possible for the staffing that we have. The CDC's definition for contact tracing is that any case load over 25 per day per 100,000 would be overwhelming for Public Health. That's the CDC's definition. We're currently at close to 180 cases per day per 100,000. We just simply can't call the patients any longer. So we're going to look at a new approach. At Pikeville Medical Center, we believe that together we can make a difference in the fight against cancer. We are proud to have patients who have experienced successful outcomes over many years. As always, we believe in the power of faith. Pikeville Medical Center, where cancer can be defeated. As Riley states, PCHD will continue with weekly updates and continue with their current system. However, they hope to streamline the process with a website and phone number. However, you know, moving forward in the very near future, we will have a different process. We will have a phone number and an online form. So there should be a 1-800 number in an online form where patients can either go online, they can go to our website, they can go to our social media site, or they can call 1-800 number, give us updated contact information, answer a couple of very basic questions. What we want to do at that point is focus on patients who are requesting phone calls. That will be time efficient, you know, for us. And we'll appease, I think, and make the public as satisfied as possible during this time. Dates for PCHD's new system have yet to be announced. If you have questions, you can call the Pike County Health Department at 606-437-5500. For Mountaintop News, I'm Joel Chorjol.