Retiring Guy's Digest: Week by week: COVID-19 cases in Georgia

Some public health experts question the governor's decision to continue loosening the coronavirus guidelines, saying current data shows an increase in Covid-19 cases since May 1, with spikes occurring in smaller counties outside metro Atlanta.

As Georgia reopens, is it creating a model for America? (Christian Science Monitor, 5/26/2020)

That hesitancy may have helped, public health officials say. Georgia’s rolling seven-day average of new cases has declined, according to the Department of Public Health, down from nearly 728 on May 19 to 308 on May 25. Other tallies show the number of cases running flat, despite an increase in the state’s testing rate. That improvement comes as Georgia state officials apologized last week for adding faulty data that made its decline look more pronounced, citing a processing error. And in neighboring Florida, data scientist Rebekah Jones, who handled the state’s COVID-19 dashboard, claims that she was fired for refusing to fudge numbers in order to support the state’s reopening plan.

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (5/4/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (5/1/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/28/2020)

Related reading:

Reopening Has Begun. No One Is Sure What Happens Next. (The New York Times, 4/25/2020)

South Carolina, for example, looks likely to be among the first states to allow widespread reopening of businesses. But if a manufacturer there depends on a part made in Ohio, where the virus is still spreading, it may not be able to resume production, regardless of the rules.

“We live in an economy where there are lots of interconnections between different sectors,” said Joseph S. Vavra, an economist at the University of Chicago. “Saying you want to reopen gradually is more easily said than done.”

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/22/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/20/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/18/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/16/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/14/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/12/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/10/2020)

Related reading:

Atlanta Journal Constitution headlines (4/9/2020)

Atlanta Journal Constitution

The next coronavirus hot spots are in states that aren’t testing enough. (Politico, 3/31/2020)
Georgia playing catch up in coronavirus testing. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4/1/2020)

BREAKING: Georgia governor to order shelter in place to curb coronavirus. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 4/1/2020)

Kemp had balked at more stringent restrictions to combat the disease, in part because he was worried more severe bans would cripple the economy in parts of the state where there are few known cases of the disease.

But he reversed course on Wednesday as a growing number of other Republican governors, including the leaders of Florida, Texas and South Carolina, instituted broader limits on mobility and shuttered more business to try to counter the disease.

Was curious was to why Dougherty County is Georgia's only hot spot outside metro Atlanta.

The New York Times reports:

‘Explosive spread’ of coronavirus in Georgia likely to worsen. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3/28/2020)

“The media and some in the medical profession are peddling these doomsday models and projections,” Kemp’s top aide, Tim Fleming, wrote Saturday. “This has in turn resulted in people panicking and local governments across our state overreacting. As a result of their overreach, many small businesses will struggle and some will not reopen.”

[emphasis added]

Fleming’s remarks appear to conflict with the position of the state’s own public health officials, who say the outbreak is likely to worsen without aggressive social distancing measures.

Monday, February 15, 2021

Week by week: COVID-19 cases in Georgia

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