Although the two-week new case rate is much lower than what was reported this time last year, Gilmer County is still seeing several new COVID cases each week and more than Georgia Public Health would like to see in a county this size.
“We’re still dealing with COVID. We’re not out of this yet,” said Dr. Zachary Taylor, North Georgia Health District director, last week during the Gilmer County Board of Health’s last quarterly teleconference meeting of the year.
Taylor said 39 new COVID cases were reported in the county in the two weeks prior to the meeting.
That represents a case rate of 124 per hundred thousand, and anything above 100 per 100,000 is considered high transmission, he added. In December of 2020, Taylor reported to the local Board of Health that Gilmer’s 14-day case rate per 100,000 was 337 per 100,000.
To date, there’s been 3,594 cases of COVID reported in Gilmer County, he noted. A little over 7½ percent of people tested in the county the past two weeks were positive, Taylor said.
“We’d like to see that below 5 percent and ideally below 2 percent,” he said.
A few cases of the Omicron Variant have been reported in Georgia thus far, Taylor noted. Although the new COVID variant appears more transmissible than Delta, the Delta Variant is still responsible for the slight surge in recent cases, he added.
“We’re not certain yet that (Omicron) is a less severe illness than the Delta Variant. We need more information regarding that. It is here and could overtake the Delta Variant,” Taylor said.
In her quarterly report, Krystal Sumner, Gilmer Health Department nurse manager, said the health department has given a total of 19,551 COVID vaccines since January. There have been 816 booster doses given this year, and the health department has vaccinated 18 children under 12, she added.
Residents and staff of local senior care facilities Parkside Skilled Nursing Care and Sunshine Manor who wanted booster doses recently received them, while the health department also continues to vaccinate homebound residents and employees of the Pilgrims poultry plant, Sumner noted.
Current vaccination rates for Gilmer County are 43 percent fully vaccinated, and 46 percent receiving at least one dose, Taylor said.
“That compares to Georgia, (with) 59 percent receiving one dose and 52 percent fully vaccinated. We still have work to do on that front. (The health department’s staff has) really been working like heroes out there trying to get people vaccinated,” he added.
Lex Rainey, Gilmer Board of Health chairman, asked Sumner why some people are coming in so late to get their first COVID shot.
“It’s been a year now,” he said.
Sumner said most people who are coming to get the vaccine for the first time have been personally affected by COVID.
“Whether it be a family member or spouse that has gotten really sick, that seems to be the most common comment that we’ve gotten,” she added.
Sumner said rapid COVID testing is still being done at the health department for first responders, school and court employees Monday- Friday, from 8-9 a.m.
An off-site testing location outside the Gilmer County Civic Center, which is maintained by Mako Medical, continues to operate Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.
On another vaccine front, Sumner reported the health department has given a total of 686 flu shots this year, including 108 at an October drive-thru clinic. Twenty-two off-site flu shot clinics have also been held this year, she added.