Habersham County has officially arrived at the community spread stage of the COVID-19 crisis, as cases shot from seven to 79 in the last 11 days, including two deaths attributed to the disease by the Georgia Department of Public Health.
The second Habersham County resident recorded as a COVID-related death was a 40-year-old woman who had previous health issues, the DPH web site reported.
“The woman was not an inpatient at the facility, but she was pronounced dead in the emergency department,” Habersham Medical Center CEO Lynn Boggs said.
As of Wednesday evening, HMC had administered 139 tests with 28 positives and seven pending. The hospital was treating three COVID-19 positive patients at the time those figures were released.
At the Monday noon update, there were 18,947 positive cases statewide with 3,550 hospitalized and 733 deaths.
Dave Palmer of District 2 Public Health said that as more test kits have been made available, more tests are being conducted, resulting in higher numbers. He added that as DPH resolves cases they previously listed as unknown, many county’s numbers are rising.
Palmer added that exact data has taken a few days to be accurately reported, meaning that many of the cases now reported in the county have been in the community for longer than it seems.
Fieldale Farms Corp. President Tom Hensley said they’ve had about 8-10 COVID-19 cases. “Anybody who was working within five feet of the infected person also gets sent home for 11 days with pay to self-quarantine,” Hensley said.
Hensley confirmed all of these infected employees are under the age of 40 and none are currently being treated at Habersham Medical Center.
Temperature monitoring and other health screening procedures continue to be taken at the Fieldale plants prior to employees entering. In the packing line, dividers are currently set up between every employee. The Habersham facilities can fit up to 1,200 employees.
With the rising amount of cases, emergency calls for patients with COVID-19 symptoms also are on the rise. Emergency Services Director Chad Black and his paramedics have been training for this for months, and they have needed that training in recent days.
“We have transported quite a few now and everyone is using the PPE correctly,” Black said. “We have had no exposures and pray we won’t. Personnel have been exposed to patients who are positive, but with PPE on and Bioesque we use, nobody even tested or had to be quarantined. I pray day and night we have them protected as much as we can and none of our personnel get the virus.”
EMS call volume is down in general in Habersham County as it is around the country with the exception of COVID-19 hotspots. County Manager Phil Sutton said Wednesday that the emergency department will receive a grant of $62,512.99 from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress.
“We will have to wait until end of this month to get an estimate of what we lost in reimbursement versus other Aprils,” Black said regarding whether the stimulus would help get the department additional resources or just replace lost income.
Two staff members and one inmate tested positive at Lee Arrendale State Prison last week.
Georgia Department of Corrections spokesperson Lori Benoit said the GDC has implemented a phased approach to include activating a Pandemic Emergency Response Team.
A few of the measures being taken include: enhanced sanitation at all entry points to include additional hand sanitizer for staff, screening protocols implemented to include attestation of no known illness and temperature checks prior to entry for all persons to include staff; quantities of hand soap and hand sanitizer have been increased at all facilities; and suspended visitation through April 30. Masks also were distributed to all staff and inmates.
Sheriff Joey Terrell said the Habersham County Jail is still COVID-19 free to his knowledge, thanks to the safety procedures his officers have been using for nearly two months. The jail has had no visitors since March 21.
Terrell and Black did a public service video Wednesday on the sheriff’s Facebook page remind folks that wearing gloves everywhere can cross contaminate many items and surfaces, making them cause more harm than good in most cases.
But the CDC and local health officials do recommend wearing a mask of some kind in situations where social distancing is difficult, particularly the grocery store.
Staff writer Eric Pereira contributed to this report.