Dr. Gary Voccio, the head of the Northwest Georgia Department of Public Health, says that while COVID cases might not be leading to as many hospitalizations and deaths, residents should stay up to date with boosters, and if they aren’t vaccinated, they should be.

Dr. Voccio said, “There are still so many unknowns with it. It’s become more manageable but still can cause severe disease, hospitalization and death in high-risk people. Most of our Northwest Georgia population has been naturally infected, vaccinated, or both, so we’re probably going to continue to see an increase in cases but not an attendant increase in hospitalizations and deaths”.

Voccio says that there could be more variants of COVID. “One concern is that we might get a game-changing variant that could cause new waves of infection that could put us back to where we were in 2020 and 2021 but the likelihood of that scenario is small”.

Also, he is still encouraging vaccination.

“Everybody over six months of age should be vaccinated and those most likely to benefit should certainly be updated with their COVID-19 vaccines — our 65-plus people, the immunocompromised and people with high-risk medical conditions. Early on, these vaccines were promoted like the measles vaccine where you get two doses and are good for life. Within months, it became clear that they’re more like a flu vaccine where you’re going to need a boost every year, maybe even every six months. For now, we’re living with the vaccines we have and are not close to new vaccines,” he says. We recommend everyone stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines for their age group. COVID-19 vaccine is widely available throughout our Northwest Georgia communities, including at your local county health department. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at helping protect against COVID-19, especially severe disease, hospitalization, and death”.