There are some chilling concerns as we begin our fourth year of the covid pandemic in Northwest Georgia: It isn’t going away, new variants remain very possible and we’ll likely see boosters become annual or even semi-annual going forward.
That’s the summary of a detailed assessment from Dr. Gary Voccio, who was named health director for the Georgia Department of Public Health’s Northwest Health District just a few weeks before the start of the pandemic in 2020. He had just retired from private practice in pulmonary and critical care medicine with Harbin Clinic.
Since then, Voccio has spent hundreds of hours speaking before government, civic and church groups in addition to “starring” in frequent Facebook Live medical updates. He’s endured more than a few slurs and has quietly been referred to as “Dr. No” when recommending against large gatherings during peak variant spreads.
Through it all, Voccio and his team have worked with Northwest Georgia healthcare officials to save lives through vaccinations, boosters, masks and crowd restrictions. It has been a deadly battle.
As of March 1, basically the three-year anniversary of its arrival in Rome, covid has claimed 1,450 lives in Floyd, Bartow, Gordon, Polk and Chattooga counties. Another 280 have died from “probable” causes related to the virus.
Statewide, More than 35,000 have died because of the virus while another 7,359 from likely causes attributed to it. Together, that’s about the population of Polk County.
And even as we see new reported cases fall, the weekly update from the state Department of Public Health has tracked an average of three to four deaths from our area each week for the past 12 months.
There are few signs of pandemic precautions around the region these days: a small percentage still wear masks; hand sanitizer isn’t as readily available as perhaps even a year ago. But other scars remain, especially among surviving family members and also along political lines.
Medical experts, including Voccio, believe covid and regular boosters are parts of our future.
The weekly updates from the state on the number of people fully vaccinated, and those welcoming recommended boosters, barely changes month to month. Less than half our area residents are considered fully vaccinated; fewer still have completed recommended boosters.
That doesn’t stop Voccio for continuing to endorse vaccinations and a continuing wave of boosters.
“Into our fourth year of dealing with COVID-19, with over 103 million cases and 1.1 million deaths nationally, one thing we can predict is that the virus probably isn’t done surprising us,” says Voccio.
“There are still so many unknowns with it. It’s become more manageable but still can cause severe disease, hospitalization and death in high-risk people. Most of our Northwest Georgia population has been naturally infected, vaccinated, or both, so we’re probably going to continue to see an increase in cases but not an attendant increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
“One concern is that we might get a game-changing variant that could cause new waves of infection that could put us back to where we were in 2020 and 2021 but the likelihood of that scenario is small,” says Voccio.
“Everybody over six months of age should be vaccinated and those most likely to benefit should certainly be updated with their COVID-19 vaccines — our 65-plus people, the immunocompromised and people with high-risk medical conditions.
“Early on, these vaccines were promoted like the measles vaccine where you get two doses and are good for life. Within months, it became clear that they’re more like a flu vaccine where you’re going to need a boost every year, maybe even every six months. For now, we’re living with the vaccines we have and are not close to new vaccines,” he says.
“We recommend everyone stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines for their age group. COVID-19 vaccine is widely available throughout our Northwest Georgia communities, including at your local county health department. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at helping protect against COVID-19, especially severe disease, hospitalization, and death.
“The Georgia Department of Public Health plans to continue offering free covid testing at locations in Catoosa, Floyd, and Paulding counties for the foreseeable future. Those addresses may be found at nwgapublichealth.org.”
Those tests, in part, power the weekly summaries from the state. Georgia continues to monitor reported new cases, the latest deaths and hospitalizations and vaccination reports from each of Georgia’s 159 counties.
In our area, that count started Feb. 29, 2020. Several Rome medical professionals were stumped as they treated a Polk County woman just back from a business meeting in Washington, D.C. It would be a few more days before tests confirmed she was the region’s first covid patient.
Around two weeks later, a Rome woman would become the first covid fatality in our area She was one of an eventual 14 victims from the first regional “outbreak,” at Cartersville’s Church at Liberty Square.
Between mid March 2020 and Feb. 28, 2023, a combined 1,450 residents from Floyd, Bartow, Gordon, Polk and Chattooga counties had died from the virus, with another 280 from causes believed to be associated with covid.
Nearly 84,000 cases have been reported in our five counties. Almost 146,000 Northwest Georgians were considered fully vaccinated through late February or around 44% of area residents.
A county-by-county look at covid’s spread over three years shows:
♦ Floyd: 458 deaths; 113 “probable” deaths; and 27,079 positive tests. Vaccinations: Nearly 49% of those eligible, the region’s highest.
♦ Bartow: 421 deaths, 67 “probable” deaths; and 26,286 cases. Fully vaccinated: 43%.
♦ Gordon: 259 deaths; 45 “probable” deaths; and 13,760 cases. Fully vaccinated: 43%.
♦ Polk: 179 deaths; 36 “probable” deaths; and 10,771 cases. Fully vaccinated: 45%.
♦ Chattooga: 133 deaths; 19 “probable” deaths; and 5,955 cases. Fully vaccinated: 42%, region’s lowest.
♦ Georgia: Nearly 6.1 million people are identified as being fully vaccinated or 59% of those eligible.
