MADISON COUNTY, ALABAMA, Ala. — As more businesses reopen and more people get out, health care officials say the number of COVID-19 cases will continue to go up.They're just hoping the increase is manageable.
Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers said, "Yesterday, we had the highest number of positives in Madison County that we've had in a long time. We had 18 positive cases in Madison County yesterday."
Case numbers are steadily rising, but things are still slowly going back to normal.
"The hospital is busy. Our volumes have picked up for non-COVID patients. We've started to get back to more normal volumes in Madison County," said Spillers.
Madison Mayor Paul Finley said, "One thing that they are changing now that the weather is starting to heat up a little bit is where they've had folks waiting in their cars, they'll now start allowing those folks or bringing those folks into the waiting rooms both in their normal waiting rooms and the ER room."
Mayor Finley says he's proud of the community's effort to flatten the curve and focus on a positive future.
"We know businesses had to close. A lot of people went on unemployment, but we were in a position before this hit where over the course of the next three to five years, we were going to have to fill about 50,000 jobs throughout the course of North Alabama. We're headed towards that," said Mayor Finley.
They are testing more asymptomatic patients right now, but only a small number of those actually come back positive.
"If you don't have any symptoms and you don't think you're sick, you're probably not sick," said Spillers.
Although there are enough supplies right now, if someone with COVID-19 attends a large protest, they aren't sure there would be enough to test every person who was there.
"I think we need to be very thoughtful on how we do testing and who we test. If people are sick and they want to go protest, they need to come to the clinic first and let us test them and see if they're positive before they go down there," said Spillers. "I would hope people wouldn't go down there if they feel bad, but to do just asymptomatic people, I just don't think that would be the most effective use of our resources."
Watch the full June 3rd Madison County update here.
WATCH: Madison County officials reflect on Monday, June 1st protest