The latest county-wide COVID numbers for Chattooga County are not good and represent a dramatic increase since the first of the month.

According to the latest numbers available, an average of seventeen cases per day were being reported over the past week; that’s a 234% increase over the average from two weeks ago.  Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, one in eight Chattooga County residents have been infected by COVID-19 with a total of 3,241 cases – or roughly 13% of the total population.

Right now, Chattooga County is at an extremely high risk for unvaccinated people, according to the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC says that the trend in deaths tends to lag weeks behind the trend in reported cases: Cases have recently increased in Chattooga, which could mean a rise in deaths will follow.

Because of extremely high Covid-19 transmission in Chattooga County right now, unvaccinated people are at an extremely high risk. Vaccinated people are at lower risk.