Information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Georgia Department of Public Health and South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control all say the same thing. New cases of SARS-CoV-2 are rising, along with hospitalizations.
In Georgia, the July 6 report shows 15,394 new cases, and 731 new hospitalizations since last week’s report. Georgia has had 2,066,281 total cases and 117,121 total hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.
The CDC provides a Community Levels, searchable map on its website (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/covid-by-county.html) .
It looks at new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven data. The information is used to classify a community as low, medium or high.
MORE: AU Health updates visitor policy due to COVID-19
The latest data moved Richmond County into the medium category, prompting Augusta University Health to update its visitation policy.
“At medium we go to requiring universal masking and putting some limitations on visitations. So that is what prompted the change,” said Dr. Phillip Coule, vice president and chief medical officer for Augusta University Health System. “The reason we’re seeing an increased number of cases and an increased number of admissions of cases is because of the emergence of an Omicron sub variant called BA-5 and that BA-5 variant is highly contagious.”
Visitors will be required to wear a medical-grade mask. If they don’t have one, AU’s Blue Coat Ambassadors at hospital entrances will provide one. No support persons are permitted with COVID-19 patients. Non-COVID patients are permitted two support persons. Waiting rooms remain open with physical distancing.
During a June 29 media briefing, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, pointed to omicron and its variants as driving new cases around the world.
“Driven by BA.4 and BA.5 in many places, cases are on the rise in 110 countries, causing overall global cases to increase by 20% and deaths have risen in three of the six WHO regions even as the global figure remains relatively stable,” he said, adding, “This pandemic is changing but it’s not over. We have made progress but it’s not over.”
Coule agrees, saying all indications are that COVID-19 is here to stay.
“It really is a matter of both learning to respond to whatever COVID is doing, as well as developing countermeasures like strain specific vaccines and other therapeutics in order to treat when people do develop COVID,” he said. “Much like the flu or the four other common coronaviruses that occur and seasonal variations throughout the year, this likely will become another one of those that in all likelihood will become less severe and more common, much like the other common coronaviruses are.”
Piedmont Augusta and Doctors Hospital have continued visitor restrictions that have been in place since last year. The information is at:
https://www.universityhealth.org/patient-visitor-information/for-visitors/visiting-hours
https://doctors-hospital.net/covid-19/visitor-policy.dot
The CDC said community levels in Columbia County remain low, as do cases Aiken County in South Carolina.
SCDHEC’s July 2 update said the most recent week saw 11,844 new cases, which is an increase of 7.8% over the previous week and a 12.5% increase over the previous month. There are currently 323 hospitalized, a 15.8% increase over the previous week and a 14.1% increase over the previous month. There have been 1,560,139 cases reported in the Palmetto State since the pandemic began.
Nationwide, the CDC said the daily average of new cases is 106,178. The daily average of new hospital admissions is 5,126.
Since the pandemic began in 2020, the CDC said 87,899,721 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 1,014,427 people in the United States have died because of the virus.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
