Dr. Voccio: More testing needed
♦ The region DPH director urges people to get COVID-19 tests to help gauge spread of the coronavirus.
People who are in selfquarantine because of potential close contact to COVID-19 should get tested for the coronavirus on the tenth day of their quarantine.
“The reason is that, on Day 10, you may still be having viral replication and on Day 10 that is more likely to be positive,” said Dr. Gary Voccio, director of the 10-county Northwest Georgia Public Health District.
Voccio told community leaders Thursday that Gov. Brian Kemp wants as many people as possible to be tested, in part because there is a good chance the positivity rate would decrease significantly.
“Our numbers are so high in Georgia. When you have a more than 10% positive rate, you don’t have enough denominators,” Voccio said. “We need to test more to find true negatives. More than 10% is really why we’re in the red zone.”
The Georgia Department of Public Health daily report shows the number of cases of COVID-19 in Floyd County went up by 41
‘We need to test more to find true negatives.’
Thursday, to 1,912 since the outbreak began in March. Floyd Medical Center reported 36 people hospitalized for treatment of the coronavirus. Redmond Regional Medical Center had 25.
Voccio also said that a high percentage of some of the so-called “quick test” results that are returned as negatives are likely to be false negatives. He suggested that if someone got a negative on a quick test, they should get one of the more traditional nasal swab tests to confirm the diagnosis.
Changes are in the works for testing opportunities across the 10-county district, Voccio told Rome and Seven Hills Rotary club members.
In Rome, West Rome Baptist Church is the primary public testing site but Voccio said he’s got to get some of the Public Health nurses who have been conducting the testing back into their normal day-to-day functions.
“We’re going to be opening different sites throughout our district and they’re going to be manned by emergency medical technicians, paramedics and LPNS employed by the district,” Voccio said.
Not promoting the wearing of masks earlier was a mistake, he said.
“We were told that this was not communicable between people and of course this was absolutely wrong,” Voccio said.
Redmond Regional Medical Center
CEO John Quinlivan said a study in South Carolina found that counties that imposed a mask mandate had a 46% reduction in COVID cases relative to the counties that did not, over a four-week period of time.
Floyd County has been experiencing a slight trend downward over the past 14 days, but the number of cases varies from day to day.
The rate in Floyd County is about 1,600 cases per 100,000 people, which Voccio called “extremely high.” Floyd County has recorded 21 deaths since early March — 18 of them were white victims, two were African Americans and one was listed as unknown, which means the data was not entered into the system.
The Georgia DPH website lists just 20 local fatalities but has often reported deaths days after they actually occurred.
A significant backlog of contact
tracing still exists but the district office has just added 17 students from Berry College.
“With schools opening we have a bigger backlog,” Voccio said. “Schools are following the guidelines we have set forth, the CDC and the state have set forth, to assist us with the contact tracing. It’s a lengthy process but the schools are really picking it up for us and we really thank them.”
While so many people all around the country and globe are waiting on a vaccine, Voccio said it may not solve all the problems.
He said there are studies that show treatment boosts the level of antibodies for a short period of time but after a few weeks the antibodies were almost undetectable. That raises serious concerns about the ultimate long-term success of a vaccine, he said.
“That ain’t good,” responded retired Rome physician Dr. Paul Ferguson.