Phoebe Putney Health System CEO Scott Steiner cautiously admits virus stats ‘moving in right direction’

ALBANY — While Scott Steiner does everything outside of revealing privileged information to remain transparent in the Phoebe Putney Health System’s efforts to contain the coronavirus in southwest Georgia, he is a practical man. That’s why he hesitates when sharing the latest virus data collected at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, which has become by necessity ground zero for what quickly became a “hot spot” for the deadly pandemic.

“I really hate to give too much positive news because, unfortunately, some people take it as a sign to go back to doing things the way they did before protective measures were put in place by the local, state and federal governments,” Steiner said. “But what we’re doing is paying off. We’re seeing data that show a definite ‘flattening of the so-called curve’ in our region.

“People have been making sacrifices, and after a while, there is a natural tendency to ask ‘Is it working?’ The answer — and the stats show it — is, ‘Yes, it’s working.’”

Graphics compiled from data collected from “disparate systems” and converted into a single, sophisticated system, offer evidence that the corona curve is not only flattening, it’s showing a steady decline in the downward direction.

Perhaps most revealing is a graphic that shows the percentage of positive tests compared to the total number of patients tested at Phoebe facilities. With a 42% rate on the first day of testing at Phoebe (March 11), that rate steadily climbed, hovering at or above the 40 percent mark on a daily basis. On March 21 and 22, that number reached its highest point, at 57 and 58 percent on respective days.

After a few days in which the numbers dropped off in small increments, the percentage shot up to near or above 50 percent for three consecutive days, March 28-30. Then the arc of the graph started bending southward.

With subsequent days showing a steady decline — except for a 44% rate on April 3 — the percentage rate has steadily dropped. On April 12, that rate had dropped to 22 percent, the lowest it’s been during the crisis.

A graph showing the number of positive cases indicates dramatic increases on an almost daily basis starting March 11. But on the days from April 8-14, there is minimal change in the graph. Steiner said that data is a welcome sign.

“As you can see, the number of positive cases have been steeply going up since we started testing,” the health system CEO/president said. “We’d usually add 200 new cases every three or four days. But over the last five days (April 8-14), we’re not even halfway to 100 (new cases). That’s encouraging.”

Steiner said hospital officials have been bombarded with questions about statistics that show various patient breakdowns — many of the inquiries coming from media outlets well outside southwest Georgia — but until the hospital was able to collect all of the information it had compiled into a single system, it was too scattered to make definitive analyses.

“People are calling and saying, ‘Tell me the average age of the victims,’” Steiner said. “I had to tell them, ‘Right now, we’re too concerned with keeping people alive.”

But the data, including a map that pinpoints all the cases in Dougherty County, do confirm, basically, what the hospital staff already knew: That older people were most susceptible to the virus (76.57% older than 40) and were most likely to die from it (85%); that more positive patients are women (64.04%), but most of the hospital’s patients who died are men (55.91%).

“What this data does, it confirms what we’ve been saying all along,” Steiner said. “We’ve been saying we ‘suspect’ this is the case. Now we have the data to back it up.”

Steiner said what’s not in the data is also vital to the battle against the pandemic and beyond.

“What we’re generally seeing is that an overwhelming majority of the patients who died from the virus had comorbidities, other factors,” he said. “Things like older patients having a greater chance of getting and dying from the disease is not really shocking. That’s the way it is with any disease … strep throat, influenza. But other, underlying issues like heart disease are also factors. And in the South, particularly, obesity adds to that issue. Obesity, genetics and factors like smoking. The American Heart Association says 647,000 people die of heart disease each year and another 140,000 of stroke.

“You can make a case for social determinants, like poverty, but there are health factors outside the scope of the virus that added to the morbidity rate.”

Steiner said he has also been disheartened by some of the comments making the rounds, based purely on conjecture.

“I think the map shows that this virus is all over our region,” he said. “Dawn (Phoebe Chief Counsel Benson) and I plotted all the addresses of victims on a map and took off the streets. You can see the virus does not discriminate. I’ve heard people say this is a ‘black disease,’ and early on, people said because the virus began in China and Italy, you won’t get it if you’re African-American. Look, this is a highly contagious virus, it doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter what color, race or religion you are, if you touch an area that has the virus and rub your eye or mouth, it shifts to your body.”

Steiner said that, even with the positive data in recent days, now is not the time to stop doing the things that have helped curtail spread of the virus.

“We have to keep doing what we’re doing,” he said. “The worst thing we could do right now is pump the brakes.”

Special Photo: Phoebe