Dougherty area COVID hospitalizations reach highest level since February 2020

Aug. 4—ALBANY — Prior to reporting that COVID-19 is at its worst since the pandemic first struck, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital's director of emergency medicine related a story of a close friend and her daughter who delayed getting vaccinated.

"A couple of weeks ago the daughter got COVID," said an obviously emotional Dr. James Black. "My friend got COVID two weeks ago. She was hospitalized. She was intubated.

"I got a call 15 minutes ago, and she died."

The 53-year-old friend and her daughter "wanted to wait and see" and "kept finding excuses" not to get the shot, the physician said.

During a Wednesday news conference with community leaders, Black said there were 89 patients hospitalized in Albany and Americus with the disease, with 18 being admitted on Monday.

"Eighty-nine is the highest number of patients we've had since February 2020," Black said. "(These are) really numbers we have not seen since the earliest days of the pandemic."

While tests performed on COVID-positive patients do not screen for the delta variant, it is almost certainly behind the current surge.

Of those admitted to the hospital since April 1, a little more than 10 percent had at least one dose of the vaccine, and some were fully immunized with the two-dose regimen, Black said.

However, those illnesses are generally less severe than cases for those who are not vaccinated.

"This is currently a pandemic of the unvaccinated for the most part," Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas said. "Here in our community, we are seeing an increase in the rate of infection because we are behind on vaccinations."

During weekly task force calls, Cohilas said, medical officials relate that people who are vaccinated are much less likely to get sick, and vaccinated individuals who get COVID-19 tend to have milder cases.

In Georgia, 46.46 percent of residents have had at least one of the two-shot vaccine, and 40.77 percent were fully vaccinated, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. In Dougherty County 38.23 percent have had at least one dose and almost 34 percent are fully vaccinated. For Lee County the numbers are 43.72 percent who have had at least one dose and 39.12 percent fully vaccinated.

"I can't make anybody do anything," Cohilas said. "I can't tell you what to do with your own health care. What I can tell you is the objective information, the stories, what we are seeing every day.

"The way we fix this is by getting people educated, giving them information, honest information (including) about the people who have not been vaccinated and what their health outcomes are. Those are the facts."

Because of the rate of transmission, the city of Albany's mask ordinance is back in effect, Mayor Bo Dorough said. The ordinance, which requires wearing a mask in public settings, kicks in when the 14-day rolling average hits the 100 per 100,000 population threshold.

In Albany, the most recent 14-day average was 154 cases per 100,000 in population, the mayor said. The infection rate of about 4 percent also has risen dramatically. It had been averaging about 4 percent but was at 10 percent last week and expected to increase.

"One thing we need to understand, it's clear people who have been fully vaccinated have a significant resistance to the virus," Dorough said.

Vaccines are available at the Dougherty County Health Department from 8 a.m.-noon Monday and Thursday and from 1-5 p.m. on Thursday. To set up an appointment, call (229) 638-6424, (229) 352-6567 or visit swgapublichealth.org.

Coronavirus testing is available from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and may be expanded due to the high number of cases in the community.

To schedule an appointment through Phoebe in Albany or Americus, call (229) 312-MYMD (6963) and for Sylvester call (229) 776-2965.