WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — It took four months for Georgia to reach 100,000 positive COVID-19 cases.
It's taken just four weeks to reach 200,000.
Since the start of the pandemic, the state has also counted almost 4,000 deaths and close to 20,000 Georgians hospitalized.
COVID-19 continues to have an impact on the state's hospitals.
George Harrison, Chief Medical Officer at Fairview Park Hospital, says July was the busiest they've ever been for coping with the virus.
"When July came and all of a sudden we were at 10, then 15, then 25. Next thing you know, we're at 50," says Harrison. "Based on what we’re seeing now, we’re still persisting and this is still running it’s course. I don’t think we’ve plateaued yet."
Stephen Daughtery, CEO of Coliseum Medical Centers, says their COVID-19 numbers are showing signs of slowly plateauing.
"They have kind of settled out. Towards the end of June, we saw a rapid increase again in COVID patients presenting to the hospital and the hospitalizations and at one time we hit as many as 70 in our care," he says. "About two weeks ago, we were in the 60s and now we’ve settled back down kind of in the upper 50s to low 60s, so it’s plateaued and we expect now that it should be declining."
He says this surge hit Central Georgia hospitals harder than the one in April.
"I think these are going to be cycles that we go through. Certainly, this cycle was peaked higher than the first cycle. I hope that won’t be true of future cycles."
According to GEMA, right here in Central Georgia, there are currently 23 ICU beds available and 375 available statewide.
EMA Director Chris Stoner says Houston County is no different than others in Central Georgia.
"We're falling in with where everybody else is, honestly -- we're seeing a pretty significant increase every day," says Stoner.
He says people have got to do their part to bring the numbers down.
"You don’t know how it’s going to affect you or your family until you are put into that situation, so the best thing that we can tell people is, as we’ve been trying to tell them from the very beginning, is you’ve got to have some personal responsibility."
Both Harrison and Daughtery agree the average death rate has declined slightly.
Coliseum Medical Centers has seen 51 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
26 of those happened in April. The other 25 have been spread over the last three months.
"We've cared for over 700 COVID positive patients in our hospital, so the people that did not recover is still relatively low," says Daugherty. "Certainly each one of those is a loss to us and a loss to our community and their families, but we have been able to dramatically reduce that number."
Both men attribute some of that to more tools in the toolbox, like steroids, Remdisivir and plasma exchange.
"We are not seeing the same rate of death as we were seeing in March and April," says Harrison. "A lot more are surviving this than not surviving it."
He has a message for people who still aren't taking the virus seriously and those who have let down their guard.
"Do this, not so much for you, but for your fellow man. Putting on a mask is protecting everyone around you," says Harrison. "Surviving this virus is one thing, but it’s not as if you are well and you go home and that’s the end of the story. There is a long recovery process to where you have to regain your strength, your ability to eat again, just to breathe normally again."