HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — Students in Houston County celebrated a big milestone last week -- graduation.
At the Houston County High School graduation, administrators were noticeably absent, and many were wondering if it was because of a COVID-19 outbreak at the school.
The district won't say.
Houston County High School's Principal Doug Rizer posted on Twitter that they were 'unable to be there physically,' but they were cheering the students on in spirit.
We asked the Houston County School System's spokesperson Beth McLaughlin why they were absent, and she told us, "Our district does not announce illnesses of staff members, whether COVID-19 or anything else."
Just in the last two weeks, the county has seen a rise in cases.
"We suspected we were not out of the woods yet, and we're not," says Houston Healthcare's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Dan Stewart.
When we last spoke with Stewart, they had less than five COVID-19 patients in the hospital.
Now, they have 18.
He says when they hit their surge back in April, they had around 35 to 40 patients at the hospital.
The low number was holding steady until June 11th, when they started adding around three to four more patients per day.
"Now that they're not sheltering in place anymore, they just think they can go out and go to completely normal activities and that's just not the case," says Stewart.
This past week, Houston County had the most new cases in a week since early April.
A month ago, they had 335 cases. As of June 22, they have 513.
"I think we're seeing what they call the second wave or the second surge," says Stewart.
He says he is still hopeful the warmer weather will slow down the spread, but as people continue to travel to places like Georgia, Florida and Texas for vacation, that may not happen.
"We have to maintain social distancing. We do really need to encourage people to wear masks when they go out in public, when they are going out to eat."
He says he is encouraged by the low mortality rates they are seeing, even as positive cases and hospitalizations rise.
He says during their surge, Houston County was averaging two deaths a day.
Now, they are averaging about one a week over the last three weeks.
Stewart says he attributes the lowered death rate to a better understanding of how to treat the virus and that it is weakening as it moves through communities.
"We know how to treat this a lot better than we did when we first got started and we also have Remdesivir available now, which is the new drug that everybody... it was approved for that. We've been able to get our hands on that drug here."
But, he says the virus is still a threat, so it's important to continue to follow CDC guidelines.
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