County at almost 3K COVID-19 cases

♦ New infection rates appear to be on the rise following Labor Day weekend.

With a seven-day moving average of 33 new COVID-19 cases a day, Floyd County is poised to quickly top 3,000 cumulative coronavirus infections early this week.

As of Monday, the county has had 2,987 confirmed cases of COVID- 19 since the first infection was reported on March 11. In the past four weeks, there have been 831 new confirmed cases in Floyd County — nearly 28% of the cumulative number of cases the county has seen.

As we move into the twoweek period after Labor Day, we should soon be able to see if people heeded the pleadings of state officials to take precautions to slow the spread of the virus.

Health officials have expressed concerns that a spike in infections would occur after the holiday — similar to what occurred after Memorial Day and Fourth of July celebrations and gatherings.

One of the concerns public health officials have voiced is how quickly the virus is spreading. In the early days of the virus, the phrase “flatten the curve” was used in a call to not overstress health care facilities and emergency departments.

Without a serious push to count more people, many cities and counties in Georgia could find themselves left with fewer dollars to provide services for more people – and will be stuck with that problem for another decade.

“As of today Georgians have 10 days left to take 10 minutes and answer 10 questions to help their communities for the next 10 years,” Georgia Municipal Association Executive Director Larry Hanson.

“We can and must do better,” Hanson said. He explained that for every person who is not counted, the state would lose approximately $ 3,850 per year over the next decade.

Consequences of an undercount are serious, Davis said. She told the audience the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission lost two staff slots related to federal job training programs.

“It’s not theoretical,” Davis said. “It has real, very dramatic consequences.”

She also explained the significance of an undercount on economic development.

“Companies who are looking at our communities, the first place they look is they start looking at those census numbers and the demographics and whether your community is growing,” Davis said. “They see growing as thriving and many people don’t want to bring their business to a community that is not thriving.”

The census count affects the state’s share of a huge pot of federal dollars provided annually for a wide range of programs like Medicaid and Medicare, food stamps, housing vouchers, highway construction, child- care services, special education and more.

Roughly $1.5 trillion will be available for states to tap into, depending on the size of their census-determined populations, according to research from Georgia Washington University. The larger the population, the larger the share.

The census also plays a major political role in influencing how state lawmakers may redraw legislative

and congressional district boundaries during negotiations next summer.

The high- stakes logistics of counting hundreds of millions of people across vastly different communities was daunting from the start. But the COVID- 19 pandemic threw a major wrench into the equation, causing on-the-ground census takers to delay operations into summer and face reluctance from uncounted people to open their doors during follow- up visits.

Davis and Moultrie Mayor William Mcintosh said that COVID-19 had certainly complicated the count over the last six months and communities have to work hard during the last week and a half of the official count.

Mayor Bill Mcintosh, from the South Georgia city of Moultrie, noted smaller and more rural communities like his could suffer worse from an undercount than urban areas — by losing critical federal dollars and by having less representation in the Georgia General Assembly through redistricting.

Mcintosh said he’s seen some resistance to completing the census from people who fear the federal government may use their personal information for negative purposes. That will not happen, Mcintosh and others stressed.

“The census matters and it matters in very significant ways in our lives,” Mcintosh said.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and East Point Mayor Deana Ingraham also participated on the webinar.