Positive cases for COVID-19 have decreased in a Sandy Springs neighborhood described by health officials as a “huge hot spot.”
The Northwood community near I-285 saw a high number of positive cases in the early summer. But there was a significant decline in numbers during the last two weeks of July, said Doug Schuster with Emergency Management Services International.
Schuster and Fulton County health officials updated Sandy Springs City Council members on the number of local cases during a virtual meeting held on Tuesday.
New cases in the ZIP code of the Northwood neighborhood were up 178% during the last 14 days of June, according to a Fulton County Board of Health report. The number dropped 58% in late July.
Matthew Kallmyer, director of the Atlanta-Fulton Emergency Management Agency, said the decrease came after mobile testing and contact tracing in the Northwood community.
The ZIP code area where the Northwood neighborhood is located has had 821 cases of COVID-19, as of Aug. 5.
Schuster said the data officials are seeing on testing at Northside and Emory Saint Joseph Hospitals confirms the improvements coming about in hot spot neighborhoods.
“They’re seeing the highest symptomatic patients,” he said. “They’ve had three or four days in the last five with no positives.”
Schuster said the number of patients at the hospitals that tested positive for COVID-19 dropped between July 19 and Aug. 2. Northside saw a slight decrease from 21.5% to 16%. The decrease was larger at Emory Saint Joseph, going from 18.5% to below 5%.
Patients with COVID-19 were less than 20% of the 631 total beds at the hospitals, Schuster said.
Georgia has reported more than 200,000 confirmed cases for the disease. Fulton is averaging 5,000 COVID-19 tests per day. The officials said 24% of 1.6 million tests for COVID-19 in Georgia were done in Fulton.
Numerous Sandy Springs residents have called on the city to issue a mask mandate. That prompted the city to pass a resolution encouraging people to wear masks in public. On Wednesday, Sandy Springs City Hall closed its revenue and permitting office temporarily after an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
Dr. Mark Swancutt with Fulton County Board of Health said most transmission of COVID-19 is from family member to family member, or among friends who each think the other is safe to be physically close to.
Swancutt also found transmission occurs when a small group socializes less than six feet apart from other small groups.
The officials presented data suggesting 1,133 deaths would occur in Fulton by Nov. 1 without a mask mandate, compared to 647 deaths with a mandate.
“No matter what your political beliefs are, we do believe that masks would stop the spread,” Schuster said. “It would ease the hospitals and everything else.”
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