Source: South Health District

VALDOSTA – Lowndes County surpassed 1,000 cases of COVID-19 this week.

On the same day Lowndes hit that milestone, Lowndes ranked 40 out of 159 counties Wednesday in cases per 100,000 in Georgia, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

In the top third of cases per capita in the state, the county has been hit harder than some other counties, and that especially applies to the month of June. On June 1, Lowndes contained slightly more than half the cases per 100,000 than the entire state’s rate, according to The Valdosta Daily Times COVID-19 database available at valdostadailytimes.com.

Twenty-two days later, cases per 100,000 in Lowndes skyrocketed, going from 60% of the state’s rate to 134%, according to the Times COVID-19 database.

That leap has coincided with total COVID-19 cases in Lowndes increasing 331% since the month’s start, resulting in the 1,000-plus cases this week since the start of the outbreak, according to the database.

In simple terms, Lowndes transformed from a county less affected by the virus to one more affected in three weeks.

Comparing that to South Health District testing data obtained by The Valdosta Daily Times, cases grew at a higher rate than district tests performed, 217%, during the same time period, indicating a possible higher rate of positive tests.

When looking at age of infections, younger Lowndes residents have contracted COVID-19 more than their elders. The median age of a Lowndes resident with coronavirus is 32, according to the district. 

The slight majority of confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases in the county, 30.92%, 11-24 age range, according to district data. Cases of patients 55 years or older account for 18.83% in Lowndes.

Along with younger people being infected more than older ones, hospitalizations in Lowndes have only gone up 44%, a drastically smaller percentage than the new case rate.

Cases have risen at a rapid rate but COVID-19 patients who became critically ill from the virus have lagged behind at a much slower rate. This could be due to being recently infected and not becoming seriously sick yet or it could be the higher percentage of young Lowndes residents catching coronavirus.

Information about race from the district, on the other hand, is harder to discern trends. Nearly half – 46.18% – of cases in Lowndes remain unknown, according to the district.

The high rate of unknown races is due to two factors: private labs do not always collect information about a race and some people feeling uncomfortable providing their race when registering for a COVID-19 test, said Kristin Patten, South Health District public information officer. She encourages residents to provide demographic information such as race and age and assures people the information is used solely for statistics.

The gender breakdown of Lowndes cases is 53.42% female, 46.18% male, 0.1% unknown and 0.3% not labeled.

Lowndes added three deaths from the virus Tuesday, but the county’s seven total deaths present an extremely small sample size. Five local deaths were white residents and two were Black residents, according to the district, but inferring trends from the single-digit total remains a bridge too far.

The median age of the seven deaths is 77, according to the district.

While the median age of a COVID-19 case in the entire South Health District appears slightly older than Lowndes at 35 years old, the 35-54 age bracket has the highest percentage, 28.14%, for contracting the virus, according to the district.

South Health District represents Ben Hill, Berrien, Brooks, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Lowndes, Tift and Turner.

The elderly people in the district – ages 55 and older – represent 22.93% of cases and 11- through 24-year-olds account for 24.29%, according to the district.

Female infection rates are slightly lower than those of Lowndes: 50.84% are female; 48.43% are male; 0.35% are unknown; 0.35% are not labeled; and 0.04% are “other.”

Like Lowndes, race data in the 10-county district contains a large hole in the data: 38.44% of races being unknown. This gap has also been affected by the two factors Patten cited about Lowndes’ unknown percentage.

District deaths due to COVID-19 have the same average age as Lowndes County at 77 years old, according to the district. The district has had 65 deaths, nearly 10 times as many deaths as Lowndes. The racial makeup of district deaths are basically 50/50 Black and white as 33 deaths were white, 31 deaths were Black and one was listed as “other race,” according to the district.

District deaths have skewed male with 56.9% being men and 43.1% female. From this limited data, men and women in the district were infected with COVID-19 at roughly the same rate, but more men died from the virus.

For more data on Lowndes and the surrounding counties, The Valdosta Daily Times has created a database to track COVID-19 across the South Health District.

To reach the database, click the link here.