Floyd COVID-19 caseload jumps
♦ School quarantines rise after more cases reported.
Sixty-six more Floyd County residents were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 since Friday — and if the rising trend continues, the county could hit 4,000 cumulative cases by mid-week.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported Monday that 424 cases were confirmed in the past two weeks, for a positivity rate of 12.4%. Overall, 59 local residents have died from the novel coronavirus.
Statewide, there were 351,881 cases as of Monday and 7,827 deaths.
“Probably the best summary of how things are going this week in Georgia is that we are reversing the downward gains in cases from the summer surge,” said Amber Schmidtke, an epidemiologist who writes a daily analysis of Georgia’s numbers.
Superintendents of both local school systems had hoped to be able to get a reset for student and staff quarantines during their fall breaks — but those numbers are beginning to rise again as well.
Rome City Schools reported 442 students and 56 teachers in quarantine as of Friday, its latest status report. The majority of the city school cases were at Main, West Central and West End elementary schools and Rome Middle and Rome High.
Floyd County schools, which does not separate student and staff numbers in its report, reported 214 quarantines on Monday — up 60 since its Friday report. The majority of those in the county school system were at Pepperell Elementary, Garden Lakes Elementary, Coosa High and Armuchee High.
The Floyd County Jail remains under Code Red protocols after a number of inmates and staff tested positive for COVID-19. That means no visitation and many of the cell blocks are under lockdown. Two training officers tested positive over the weekend, leading staff to disinfect the training center on the jail campus.
Along with the increase of new cases, the number of people hospitalized at Floyd Medical Center and Redmond Regional Medical Center has begun to rise.
On Monday, the Floyd County Emergency Management Agency reported there were 58 COVID- 19 positive patients being treated at the two hospitals. That’s an increase of 12 since the last update was sent out on Friday.
“The concerning thing about this increase in cases is that we are starting what may be a new surge from a disease rate that is twice as high as where we were prior to the summer surge. It is therefore likely that our next peak will be even bigger than the summer surge,” Schmidtke wrote. “That, of course, is not a forgone conclusion. We have the power to stop these cases, but we need to do so now with our actions.”
The latest breakdown shows Floyd as one of the 39 high transmission counties, along with the Cartersville, Carrollton, Cartersville and Dalton areas in Northwest Georgia. Parts of rural Northeast Georgia north of Athens, and a belt running east to west south of Dublin also are hotspots.
Politics in the pandemic
Deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U. S. are on the rise again, just as health experts had feared, and cases are climbing in nearly every state, despite assurances from President Donald Trump over the weekend that “we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great.”
With Election Day just over a week away, average deaths per day across the country are up 10% over the past two weeks, from 721 to nearly 794 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Confirmed infections per day are rising in 47 states, and deaths are up in 34.
Health experts had warned that it was only a matter of time before deaths turned upward, given the recordbreaking surge in confirmed cases engulfing the country. Deaths are a lagging indicator — that is, it generally takes a few weeks for people to sicken and die from the coronavirus.
The virus is blamed for more than 8.6 million confirmed infections and over 225,000 deaths in the U. S., the highest such totals anywhere in the world, with a widely cited model from the University of Washington projecting about 386,000 dead by Feb. 1.
Deaths are still well below the U. S. peak of over 2,200 per day in late April. But experts are warning of a grim fall and winter, as “pandemic fatigue” — or weariness with wearing masks and staying away from others — takes hold and cold weather forces people indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.
The seven- day rolling average for daily new cases hit a record high on Sunday of 68,767, according to Johns Hopkins, eclipsing the previous mark of 67,293, set in mid- July. The U. S. recorded more than 80,000 new cases on both Friday and Saturday — the highest marks ever — though testing has expanded dramatically over the course of the outbreak, making direct comparisons problematic.
The true number of infections is thought to be far higher because many Americans have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected without feeling sick.
Fears about the virus’s toll on the economy — and fading hopes that Washington will be able to deliver more relief anytime soon — had stocks plummeting in afternoon trading on Wall Street Monday. The S& P 500 was 2.3% lower and on track for its worst day in more than a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 800 points, or almost 3%.
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said that “we’re not going to control the pandemic” and that the focus should be on containment and treatment.
Trump, who spent several days in the hospital after contracting the virus, said repeatedly over the weekend that the country is “rounding the turn.” His remarks came amid another outbreak in the White House inner circle. Several close aides to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive, including his chief of staff.
“We want normal life to resume,” Trump said Sunday. “We just want normal life.”
The U.S. has seen a steady increase in daily new cases over the past three weeks, accruing over 1.25 million over that period. Nearly a third of that came from Texas ( 8%), California ( 6%), Illinois ( 6%), Wisconsin ( 5%) and Florida ( 5%).