EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KXRM) — A second person has died in El Paso County after becoming infected with COVID-19. The death is the third reported in Colorado.

El Paso Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly provided an update Thursday morning to the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners. He introduced himself as deputy medical director and a representative of the health department.

READ MORE: Live Blog: Updates on the coronavirus in Colorado

Kelly said that although the numbers could quickly change, as of Thursday morning, El Paso County had 11 positive COVID-19 cases.

“Of those 11, unfortunately, I am here to report our second death,” Kelly said.

He described the patient as a man in his mid-60s who had been in direct contact with the county’s first death.

“We continue to investigate the ramifications and the effects of that,” Kelly said of the woman, in her 80s, who died last week.

Kelly also made a clarification regarding the number of COVID-19 cases the county, and even the state, has confirmed.

“The laboratory-confirmed cases represents a very small percentage of what’s actually out there,” he said.

He says a disparity in the numbers makes sense, considering once someone is infected, it can take up to 14 days for them to present with symptoms of the disease.

Kelly said some people who experience symptoms won’t seek medical treatment, or they’ll seek medical treatment and never be tested for COVID-19.

When patients do go in for official testing, Kelly said, in many cases they’re waiting up to a week to get results.

“We cannot continue to wait on that test to decide what our actions are going to be,” Kelly said. “There’s just too much time.”

Kelly said from now on, instead of waiting on test results to make decisions, the county will treat patients as “suspected positives” if they have symptoms and were in a situation where they may have had contact with another infected person.