What the Coronavirus Does in Georgia Countryside

Vanessa Williams’ uncle, Johnny Carter, died in late February at the age of 70. On the first Saturday of March, the family moved to the Gethsemane Worship Center, a large modern building in northern Albany in Albany, northwest Georgia, in a city of about 75,000 people in the southwestern part of Doherty County. The funeral was held. Stuffed. “Perhaps 400 of us fill three sections of nine lines,” said Williams, 33, working as an office administrator. “We were there together and in close contact for at least an hour and a half, remembering my uncle,” she exchanged hugs with family and friends, and everyone cried from their faces I saw wiping.

Last Saturday, worshipers of the same congregation hosted another large funeral for Andrew Jerome Mitchell, a local caretaker who died on February 24 with apparent heart failure. Mitchell had ten brothers, his relatives and friends came from Louisiana. Washington DC. ; Hawaii; and remember him elsewhere. “Minister, he was waving almost everyone and only gave his family comfort and condolence.” Mitchell’s niece Told Atlanta Journal configuration. “The funeral commanders were doing some of the same thing, it was a kind of their job and giving comfort.” The rally continued at the family home.

“That’s exactly the beginning,” said Williams’ boss, Winfred Duke, to me. Duke is a state legislator and the owner of a construction company where Williams works. “I’m tracking back to individuals in Cobb County, north of Atlanta,” Dukes said. “He came to Mitchell’s funeral.” (It remains unknown whether this man from Cobb County was Albany’s first carrier.) A tourist, 67, was traveling south of Georgia that night. I was admitted to the Phoebe Putney Memorial, a 691-bed hospital in the west. Of breath. He had chronic lung disease, which seemed to provide an explanation. However, his condition worsened, and he was accompanied by dozens of hospital staff before being transferred to Atlanta on March 7, Johnny Carter’s funeral day. On March 10, the test showed that he Coronavirus. He died two days later.

Williams returned to Albany’s house and began to feel unusually tired. Then: chest pain, fever, chills, see a doctor. She was diagnosed with pharyngitis that did not improve with antibiotics. Williams has been tested COVIDMarch 16-19. Dukes sent the rest of his construction company employees home. Republican Rep. Brandon Beach, a Republican, continued to work at the State Capitol, so he had already isolated himself. COVIDSymptoms of -19, early March, and then showed a positive reaction. (“I am not a bad person” The beach said Journal configuration“I thought it was the sinus bronchitis I get every year,” he added. Mitchell’s dozens of families were ill. The pastor who delivered Mitchell’s tribute later died of a coronavirus.

Williams felt the illness was the worst because he did not get a test result for eight days. Williams lives in a second-floor apartment and lives with her husband, a six-year-old son, and a retired mother. It was hard to keep a distance from her family. “My husband, he’s sick,” she said. “He said,” I’ve been married for five years, but I haven’t slept in bed with you. Let’s raise the pillow wall. ” “But when we were watching TV, he was sitting at one end of our big part, I was sitting at the other end.” Her son allowed outside Although not done, he insisted on playing soccer and basketball indoors and was constantly running around. “I did everything I could to tell him that ‘Mom can’t play’,” said Williams. “He wants to hug and do all these things. He doesn’t understand what’s going on.” She sighed. “I tried to keep my closest family from contracting it. I can’t promise they didn’t.”

Half a dozen of Williams’s families fell ill. She considered everyone infected at the funeral ceremony or at a later Sunday regular dinner. “Thanks to God we were all pulled together,” she said. Some people at the funeral did not do it. “I woke up every morning and slept a week for a week. I knew someone was dead,” she said. Two weeks after Carter’s funeral, the virus was everywhere in Albany. “We call this ground zero,” Duke’s said.

The medical director of emergency services at Phoebe Putney Health Systems is 53-year-old James Edward Black, who grew up in Albany. Black has been working on a shift for 17 to 20 hours during the past month, overseeing the hospital’s response to coronavirus and also serving as an emergency doctor. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge,” Black told me. He said tornadoes and hurricanes have hit southwest Georgia in the past few years. “We’re used to high water levels and floods. Natural disasters quickly affected and left. When we talked about viral and biological properties, when did it peak? I don’t know, I don’t know if this is the first wave or many waves. “

Black tries to exercise a bit before the sun goes out, but if he can manage it, he goes to the hospital and conducts a survey of patients waiting to be hospitalized and those who can move out to free up room. “By 7:00 this morning, three patients had to be hospitalized and three were waiting for a transfer,” he told me earlier this week. Six hours later, he said, 20 patients needed to be hospitalized or transferred. “It changes very quickly,” he said. Nearly every possible ward at Phoebe Putney COVIDWard with own doctors, nurses and medical personnel. About a month ago, he and his colleagues were starting to worry about the coronavirus, but he said they felt they probably had what they needed. “We had a conversation.” Like Ebola, with abroad coverage, but didn’t really see it here or something closer? SARSSo maybe? Nearly 1,000 people have died worldwide. ” Nobody imagined a Spanish cold. A week later, Mitchell and Carter’s funeral patients came and his confidence began to fluctuate. “It’s like never seen before,” Black said. The hospital is near the limit. “Nothing is missing yet, but we are approaching the cut line,” Black said. “Between the inpatient ward and the emergency department there are also 200 patients and all staff who need P.P.E. P.P.E. With such a great clip.”

Scott Steiner, C.E.O. of the Hospital Network, monitors supplies in real time. “Surgical gowns are three days old,” he told me on Tuesday. “N95s, we are 7 days. Surgical masks that are thin masks are about 6 days. Face shields, we are in good condition. Hand gels-we have experienced incredible amounts But I think you have about 10 days at hand. “” We are constantly procuring new products. New sources. No more traditional sources are available, In less than two weeks, “hospital staff began sewing their own mask,” MacGyvering things up, “as Steiner said. “We rolled it out yesterday morning,” he said. “This has helped extend the life of the N95 mask. If you haven’t done it, you won’t have an N95 mask anymore.” (“I would help my family with munitions or everything it takes It was very similar to the war effort of the Deaf at the time, “Black told me.) Since Tuesday, the hospital has made 20,000 cloth masks and Steiner to further expand its supply of N95 and surgical masks. Currently expects to last about two and three weeks respectively. He said in a follow-up call that it ranged to six days of hand sanitizer and two days of face shield. “It’s impossible to predict what will be obtained and when,” Steiner explained. “Sometimes it comes in skids from state stockpiles, and we source items individually from specific vendors.”