Condition report for new COVID-19 hospital cases in Albany: ‘stable’

ALBANY — After experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases beginning in July, the Phoebe Putney Health System has seen the numbers level out over the past several weeks.

“As we begin another week in our COVID-19 fight, the good news is our number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients is not going up,” system CEO Scott Steiner said. “The bad news is it’s not really going down either.”

On Monday, there were 56 patients hospitalized for treatment of the disease at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany. An additional 12 were hospitalized at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center and two at Phoebe Worth Medical Center.

The health system has averaged about 70 patients per day through August and just under five new admissions of COVID-19 patients per day during that time span.

“It’s slightly lower than our admission rate in July and down significantly from our highs in March and April, when we admitted a daily average of nearly 22 and 14 patients, respectively,” Steiner said.

More than 170 Dougherty County residents have died of complications due to COVID-19, and there have been 199 deaths at Phoebe health facilities in Albany and Americus. Since March some 689 patients have recovered.

Since the pandemic began there have been 2,904 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the county, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Statewide, the agency reported a total of 253,949 confirmed cases and 5,132 deaths.

“Our best chance to break our current plateau and begin a downward admission trend remains widespread mask usage and adherence to other safety guidelines,” Steiner said.

Special Photo: Phoebe