Daily COVID-19 hospitalizations jump in Floyd County
The number of COVID- 19 positive patients housed in Floyd County’s two hospitals jumped overall on Wednesday to 72 after weeks of high infection rates.
While the number of new cases rose drastically after the beginning of October, they appear to have plateaued at a fairly high mark. Since then, each of Floyd County’s hospitals on average reported between 20 and 30 COVID-19 patients per day. The report provided by the Floyd County Emergency Management Agency does not list the residence or condition of the patient or severity of the infection.
The state Department of Public Health released a report Wednesday labeling nearly all counties in Northwest Georgia, with the exception of Paulding, as counties with high transmission indicators.
That report also shows transmission of the virus among school-aged children has been increasing since October after showing a downward trend from a large spike in July and August.
As of Wednesday, Floyd County Schools reported 391 students and staff infected or quarantining after an exposure. The latest Rome City Schools report, released on Tuesday, showed 99 students and 33 staff members in quarantine after an infection or exposure.
One of the continuing issues across the state is a lack of testing and interest in being tested.
The DPH recently stopped testing in Floyd County on Saturdays, citing lack of interest, and now only offers free COVID-19 testing at the Coosa Valley Fairgrounds on Monday and then Wednesday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The lack of interest in testing could be leading to unreported cases. One way to gauge if testing is sufficient to show an accurate picture of the level of infections in an area is the positivity rate — the percentage of positive tests. The higher the positivity rate in an area, the higher the likelihood that the number of COVID-19 cases are being underreported.
“Remember, the positive rate is often considered alongside the case rate. The case rate per 100,000 tells you how intense disease is for a given area,” said epidemiologist Amber Schmidtke, who writes a daily analysis of Georgia’s numbers. “The positive rate tells you the degree to which that case rate might be an under count of the situation. The greater the positive rate above 5%, the more likely we aren’t testing enough and are missing cases.” Floyd County’s positivity rate has remained above a 10% threshold since early October — in the past seven days it has averaged 15.6% — which is considered very high.