WZQZ has received several questions from listeners concerning the local COVID-19 numbers that are released twice daily by the Georgia Department of Public Health.  One of the most common questions we received is, “Are people who have had the coronavirus and recovered still counted in the daily totals?”

We put that question to the Northwest Georgia Department of Public Health.

“There’s no way to know if a previously confirmed COVID-19-positive case still has coronavirus without doing a so-called serological, or antibody, test, to see if they’ve had the virus but no longer have it  or unless someone is retested using diagnostic testing to see if they are still currently infected or not. “

Logan Boss with the Northwest Georgia Department of Public Health said that future testing might provide more answers. “Serological testing, which is ramping up across the country, may help identify who has been infected, however there’s no evidence serological tests can show whether a person has immunity or is no longer at risk of becoming reinfected. Plus, some of the tests have issues with sensitivity and may give a false negative result.”

Currently, the Georgia Department of Public Health is not doing any diagnostic retesting or serological testing.