The COVID Digest, 20Apr2022

Georgia's first weekly update

This newsletter will be mostly Georgia focused since they recently adjusted to once weekly data reporting.

Before I get there though, I want to highlight some wastewater surveillance data for Missouri. For the first time in months, two Kansas City area sampling sites are showing a rise in SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the water (see red triangle areas). Four sites are stable, neither increasing nor decreasing and several sites do not have enough data to report because of challenges with flow rate of water at the sampling site.

On the other side of the state, we see four sampling sites with rising SARS-CoV-2 RNA for St. Louis. The next update for these data is expected on Friday. We’ll need to see if these increases continue.

This is part of a larger trend where population centers are seeing case rises. For the midwest, it sort of started in Chicago and is now spreading through the rest of Illinois, Wisconsin and now Minnesota.

Moving on to Georgia

With the decreased frequency of data reporting, we also lost PCR test positivity since the last report (though there is a place to find this) and all reporting on antigen test positivity. We still get updates on how many PCR and antigen cases were reported to DPH. The place to find data on PCR test positivity is in the graph. And test positivity is not trending in a good direction right now.

Test positivity is rising rapidly, nearly doubling since April 1. Test positivity has risen with every surge Georgia has ever had. It’s a sign that the current capacity of testing is growing more and more insufficient to identify the amount of disease that is circulating.