New COVID-19 figures ‘alarming’ as spiking disease strikes younger age groups

ALBANY — The hope that COVID-19 was in the rearview mirror has been dashed for the moment with the reality of low vaccination rates and a more transmissible delta variant that is causing infection rates to rise again.

On Friday, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital was treating 41 patients for the disease that has killed more than 600,000 in the United States. An additional four patients were hospitalized in Americus.

“This has been an especially concerning week, and we want everyone to understand the seriousness of what communities throughout southwest Georgia are dealing with right now,” Phoebe Putney Health System President and CEO Scott Steiner said. “We are at our highest number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in about five months. On Wednesday alone, we admitted 11 patients for treatment of COVID-19 in Albany.

“It’s the first time we reached that daily number since January, in the middle of the last major surge.”

Phoebe re-opened an additional intensive care unit to deal with the influx of new patients.

Albany and Dougherty County governments have already responded to the situation by reinstituting face mask requirements in government buildings. The city’s mask ordinance that covers all public spaces also is back in effect due to the large number of new infections, Mayor Bo Dorough said.

During a Wednesday task force meeting that included government officials and health officials from Phoebe and Southwest Public Health District 8-2, which covers 14 southwest Georgia counties, the numbers were not encouraging, the mayor said.

In June, positive test results had been in the 2 percent to 3 percent range, he said. But they have since increased to 9 percent over the latest 14-day period. The city’s numbers, compiled from all health care facilities that give tests for the novel coronavirus, show a positive rate of 10 percent.

“On June 10 ,we were at 42 (cases) per 100,000 in population,” Dorough said. “On July 24 we were up to 154 per 100,000.”

The city’s mask ordinance triggers when the number reaches 100 infected for 100,000 in population.

“The mask requirement is in effect, so people should be wearing masks in public,” he said.

Dougherty County task force members will hold a news conference on Wednesday to relate the latest information to the public. Dougherty County Emergency Medical Services also has seen an increase in COVID patients it is transporting to the hospital.

“We were down to zero to one total a day until we started July, after the 4th of July,” EMS Director Sam Allen said. “In the last two weeks, we’ve gone up to about two to three — we’re running about three patients a day at this time. Most of them, a high percentage, have not had the vaccine.”

Paramedics also are seeing younger patients than was the case during earlier surges.

“Previously we were seeing 60 to 65 as the average age,” Allen said. “(Now) we’re seeing below 50, some in the mid-30s and some younger than that.

“Unfortunately, it highlights the age group that’s just not getting the vaccine for whatever reasons. We encourage people to get the vaccine. The vaccine helps save lives. Your chances of spreading the virus is much lower if you have the vaccine. You may be saving a loved one’s life by going and getting the vaccine.”

While he said he respects individuals’ medical choices, Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas said that all indications are that those who are not vaccinated are at the most risk of getting sick and having a severe illness.

“The overwhelming amount of information I have is, we are experiencing a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he said. “The vast majority of people who are getting the new strain are unvaccinated. It appears the new strain, the delta strain, is affecting people of a lower age.

“This is alarming, obviously.”

Dougherty County lags behind the state average, with about 35 percent being fully vaccinated and 38 percent having received at least one dose of one of the two-dose inoculations.

In places where vaccine rates are high there is a huge difference, and officials are not having to reimpose restrictions, the chairman said.

“If you look at the state of Vermont, I think they are at 64 percent, and life is pretty darn normal for them,” he said. “I’m not a doctor, I’m not an epidemiologist, (but) it’s evident that this is a tremendous tool that we’re not taking advantage of.”

Phoebe also reported two recent deaths attributed to COVID-19, Dorough said.

On Friday, Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler said he could not provide information about the race or ages in those cases. Fowler had been having tests performed on bodies in cases where COVID-19 was suspected, and he presented charts showing the age, race and locations of deaths in the county during previous news conferences.

“They (County Commission) cut my budget,” he said. “They told me they don’t want me to do that now. I don’t have the funds to transport people to be tested. In order to get bodies tested, I had to have EMS take the bodies to the morgue so they could get tested.

“I guess Phoebe can keep up with those who die in the hospital.”

Those who die outside a medical facility won’t be tested, the coroner said.

“I used to keep up with all that, but now I don’t have the funds to do that,” he said.

File Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]