This transcript has been edited for clarity
Julianne: The CDC has recently classified Athens-Clarke County as having a high level of community COVID-19 transmission, but what exactly does that mean? Dr Amber Schmidtke, Division Chair of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of St. Mary’s is a public health expert:
Schmidtke: “There’s a community transmission level map, which is that red, yellow, blue, orange one. That one is telling you what is your chance of being exposed to the virus, so that’s the one those immunocompromised folks really want to pay attention to. They don’t want to exposed to it all if they can help it.”
Julianne: While that map tracks transmission, others are there to help predict what kind of care might be available if you do get sick.
Schmidtke: “The other map is that green, yellow, orange map and that’s their COVID levels map, and that’s kind of a made up metric in this pandemic, but what that’s really talking about is how difficult would it be for you to access a hospital bed today if you needed one in your county.”
Julianne: As of early afternoon, about 80% of ICU beds in the Athens area were in use, although COVID cases accounted for less than 8% of hospital cases in the region.
