Chautauqua County officials Friday announced a man in his 60s, who tested positive for COVID-19, has died following a lengthy illness. His death is the third reported here.

In addition, there has been a 23rd positive case, a woman in her 40s who live in the north county region where 15 of the cases are located. Five are in the south county and three are in the east.

Through Friday, there have been 318 negative tests.

Other information today released by county officials include:

¯ Eight active cases continue to recover under orders of the Local Health Official per state Public Health Law.

¯ 12 recovered cases.

¯ 114 cases under quarantine/isolation orders by the Public Health Director and being monitored. Not all of those being monitored are confirmed to have COVID-19 but have either shown symptoms, are awaiting results, or have risk factors.

Following guidance from state Health Department, contact tracing will begin 48 hours before the day the person with the positive test started having symptoms. The department deems this the beginning of the infectious period.

Once identified, our department notifies the close contacts of their potential exposure to COVID-19 and they are placed under mandatory or precautionary quarantine to monitor for symptoms. “If you do not personally hear from a public health nurse, you are not a close contact of an individual who has been confirmed to have COVID-19. As of April 8, in a community setting, the definition of close contact with COVID-19 cases, for purposes of contact investigations and potential movement restrictions such as quarantine, includes – sharing the same household; direct physical contact; direct contact with infectious secretions of a COVID-19 case; being within 6 feet of a case for 10 minutes or more (ex. room, car),” the department reports. “The local health department considers other factors such as proximity of contact, duration of exposure, and whether an individual has symptoms, when deciding whether an exposure resulted in close contact.”

A link to the breakdown of cases is at https://chautauquacounty.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/012d07321ad6415c8cf17c4f673643c9

Erie County reports 1,498 cases as of Friday afternoon and 53 deaths. Evans reports 13 cases, North Collins reports four cases and Collins reports two cases. Cattaraugus County reports a total of 15 cases of COVID-19.