BROWN COUNTY — COVID-19 cases in Brown County continue to climb in recent days, reaching 43 on Friday, up four from Thursday.

That figure is six more than Wednesday, nine more than last Tuesday and 11 more than last Monday.

“The increase is primarily among the younger age group, people in their 20’s and 30’s,” Brown County Public Health Director Karen Moritz said in her latest update.

Three of the new cases are in their 50s, and one is in their 20s, according to Brown County Public Health. All are recovering at home.

“Regionally, we have seen an increase in cases that has been attributed to large gatherings of people in their 20’s with no social distancing or the use of cloth face coverings,” Moritz added. “We need to continue to meet the challenge of implementing community mitigation strategies to prevent the spread of illness to the most vulnerable populations.”

Brown County Public Health Supervisor Jaime Brand said since the State of Minnesota began opening up, people have gathered in larger groups.

“Some wear masks, some don’t. People don’t always social distance either,” Brand said. “There’s baseball games now and more people are going places. I think we’ll continue to see an increase in cases with the July Fourth weekend.”

Moritz said case surges in other states has been attributed to the opening up of community movement and socialization opportunities by state and federal public health professionals.

“This continues to be a fluid situation and changes day to day,” Moritz said.

Moritz will present a report to the Brown County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, July 14 at their meeting in the Brown County Law Enforcement Center Training Room.

Moritz’ COVID report will include a situational update, recommendations on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and any recommendations related to any new orders from Gov. Tim Walz, community mitigation and public health’s role and current activities.

New Ulm Police Chief Dave Borchert said police have COVID-19 enforcement authority and people could be cited for violations but nobody has been cited yet.

“The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) wants us to educate people before we write citations,” Borchert said. “We’ve addressed a few things and they’ve been corrected. We had some conversations with bar owners. It went really well. We explained what they concerns were and they were corrected.”

Borchert said police got a report including a photo of a COVID-19 violation in a bar and the situation was corrected.

“We work with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). They’ve got a hotline that gives good guidance,” Borchert said. “We also work with Brown County Public Health. They’ve been good too. The governor’s orders are enforceable. We don’t want anyone getting sick. We’re working with people.”

The county board meeting is accessible on Webex. Call Brown County Administration at 233-6600.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.)