Articles Posted in Covid- 19

At the time of writing this, more than 130 million Americans had received their $1,200 stimulus checks to help them tide over their financial problems during this crisis. However, persons who are receiving disability and other benefits by the Social Security Administration may find that their checks have been delayed.

Logically speaking, the $1,200 check should first benefit persons receiving federal benefits. For example, persons who are already on Supplemental Security Income benefits or are currently receiving Social Security disability benefits are much more likely to be facing the kind of serious financial challenges that can make it hard to even take care of basic needs, like food.

These persons should have been getting the checks the quickest. If you are a disability beneficiary who is still waiting for his or her stimulus check, it’s very likely on its way. However, there may be a delay.

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when not much was known about the terrifying Coronavirus and the disease it caused, there were hopes that the pandemic would peter off as the weather got hotter. As we move towards summer, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen at all.

In fact, experts warn that any early easing of social distancing and shelter-in-place protocols would actually lead to an unbearable spike in infection rates across the country. The White House has been keen to open up the country to a more normal way of life, preferably in the first week of May. However, experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believe that opening the country and easing lock-down and social distancing protocols now would be hazardous, and would actually lead to an increase in Covid-19 cases over the summer.

Across the globe, there has been little to indicate that an increase in temperatures is in any way helpful in destroying the virus. The virus is spreading in places as notoriously hot as India and Brazil. India, for instance, has only been to control its infection rates through strictly-enforced lock-down measures.

Testing has been a tricky issue in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic in Georgia, but we are happy to report that things are now turning for the better. Symptomatic persons are eligible for Covid-19 testing in Georgia.

Testing is a major tool in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic. Globally, countries that have ramped up testing dramatically have been more successfully in controlling the spread of the disease.

The state of Georgia is taking the necessary steps to ensure that more people can get tested for the disease. All health care workers, first responders, law enforcement personnel, and residents and staff of long term care facilities will be tested on a priority basis, even if they are not symptomatic.

In the initial days of the Coronavirus or Covid-19 outbreak many in Georgia believed that the disease would be restricted to urban areas due to higher travel as well as the greater population densities in cities.  However, rural Georgia is currently reeling from the effects of the outbreak, leaving many concerned about how hospitals in these regions will handle the large infection numbers that are now confirmed.

There is no denying that rural Georgia has been hit doubly hard by the outbreak. It is not just the number of cases that are alarming, but also the fact that rural hospitals, even in the best of times, are poorly equipped to handle vast caseloads. Several rural towns in Georgia have seen local hospitals close over the past few years as part of larger scale hospital closures across the country.

In Dougherty County, which is a Covid-19 hotspot, there are just 50 hospital ICU beds for the entire county. In the four counties surrounding it, there is not a single hospital bed. The Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany has seen as many as 600 people test positive recently, while a staggering 1000 more people who were tested at the hospital were waiting for their results at the time of writing this post. In sparsely populated Mitchell County, not a single Covid-19 case existed just two weeks ago. Today, the Covid-19 death count here is 9.

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases is fast increasing in the state of Georgia. The total number of cases at the time of writing this has touched 10566. The deaths total 379, an alarming increase by any standards. There are 2159 hospitalized.

The highest number of fatalities has been recorded in Dougherty County which has recorded 44 deaths linked to the Corona Virus global pandemic. 45 deaths were recorded in Fulton, while Cobb County recorded 29 Covid-19 related deaths.  Testing has been expanded across Georgia with more than 38,000 tests administered thus far, making it a testing rate of 24.2 percent.

Fulton County, in fact, recorded the largest increase in confirmed Corona virus cases in the past week, with 26 confirmed new cases, while DeKalb had 21 confirmed new cases. Fulton County is also the only county with a confirmed Covid-19 case toll of above 1000 with a total of 1276 recorded cases.  Currently, DeKalb County has 742 cases, while Cobb County has 629 Gwinnett County has 603, Clayton County has 297, Douglas has 127, and Fayette has 89 cases.

The good news about Covid-19 is that the survival rates are very high, and healthy adults are very likely to recover from the infection. However, it is still too early to predict the kind of damage that the infection will leave on the system, even after a complete recovery.

Some studies from China, the origin of the outbreak, seem to indicate that the lung damage may continue to impact the person, even after a full recovery. When doctors in Hong Kong country monitored 12 patients who had recovered from the Corona virus, they found that several of them continued to suffer from respiratory problems and were gasping when walking after recovery. Their lung functioning was about 20 to 30 percent lower after recovery.

When the doctors analyzed scans of the patients’ lungs, they found signs of damage. However, the sample was far too small to be taken as evidence that the infection will leave behind lung damage. But it does alert doctors treating Covid-19 patients to the possibility that there may be other complications from Covid-19, even after a complete recovery from the disease.