Kerianne Ehrlich, supervisor of the Ellsworth County Health Department, had some stunning news for county commissioners Monday during their weekly meeting.

Ehrlich said over the July 4 holiday weekend, seven cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in Ellsworth County.

“We went from three resolved to a total of 10 now, with seven active,” she said.

Ehrlich said she worked July 3 and July 4 doing contact tracing.

“We have a lot of people in quarantine,” she said. “Probably running from 75 to 100 people in quarantine.”

Commissioner Kermit Rush said he had heard the Ellsworth Child Care and Learning Center was closed.

“They’re closed for construction,” Ehrlich said. “That’s what I can comment on.”

Stacie Schmidt of the

Ellsworth County Economic Development said the learning center received a grant for work in the basement.

Ehrlich encouraged prevention.

“If you are going to be in public, and you cannot social distance yourself, we highly recommend that you wear a mask,” she said. “With this weekend going from three to 10 cases in a 24-hour period of time, it shows the virus is here — it’s active, it’s the real thing and it’s serious. It affected our county seriously this weekend, and I think it is only going to continue to affect us.”

Ehrlich did not go further and recommend commissioners reverse the decision they made July 2 to opt out of Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order mandating the wearing of face masks in public.

“Is it 100 percent possible to make a mandate to enforce masks?” she asked. “That, to me, is impossible. There’s just too many things that go into play.”

Ehrlich said there are people who are frustrated Ellsworth County didn’t follow Kelly’s mandate because they feel as if county officials don’t care for the county. She also said there are people who think the county did a great job by not following the mandate.

“We’re always going to have two sides to the story,” she said. “And it’s just meeting in the middle. I’m going to continue to educate the population and the community on the importance of wearing masks in certain situations.”

In other business:

• Sarah Goss was approved as administrator of the county’s $1.2 million coronavirus relief fund. She will assist a county task force with deadlines and other requirements as determined by the state SPARK Task Force. Goss will serve as a contract employee to the county and be paid $50 per hour.

• Approval was given to

Resolution 2020-R-11, the Ellsworth County Relief Fund dealing with the SPARKS funding.

• Officials from the Wilson Senior Center submitted a 2021 budget request of $29,000 — $5,000 more than the $24,000 it submitted in 2020.

• Ellsworth County Sheriff Murray Marston submitted a 2021 budget request of $1,372,535.40 — $22,535.40 more (or 1.64 percent more) than the $1,350,000 he requested in 2020.

The next meeting of the Ellsworth County commissioners is at 9 a.m. Monday, July 13, at the county courthouse.