Coffee County EMA gives COVID-19 update

At the June 8 Coffee County Commission meeting Coffee County Emergency Management Agency Director James Brown gave an update on the status of Coffee County in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brown said that as of June 8 Coffee County has 257 confirmed cases of COVID-19 despite the Alabama Department of Public Health listing just 246 cases in the county. Brown said his office goes through the list of COVID-19 cases and double checks addresses to confirm their numbers are correct and sometimes a patient may have a P.O. Box address listed in another county but they actually live in Coffee County, which is why there is a slight difference in the two numbers.

In total, Coffee County has just 48 active cases still in quarantine, while 209 of those cases have recovered. Brown said that throughout the pandemic Coffee County has averaged between four and five positive cases per day, which has stayed steady despite an increase in testing.

Brown also said that while the county has just one confirmed death there are also two additional deaths that are being investigated as potential COVID-19 related deaths. The cause has not been confirmed on the other two as of yet.

Brown also said that the hospitals in the area haven’t come close to being at capacity thus far and that so far only about 10 percent of hospitalizations have been COVID-19 related. Brown said that “very few” of the county’s COVID-19 cases have needed to be admitted to an intensive care unit.

“We have a plan here locally that if we get to our max (in ICU occupancy) we can expand an entire floor and make the whole floor an ICU unit,” Brown said. “We aren’t having a problem with it in our area, though. It isn’t overwhelming our system and we’re doing fantastic with ventilators. I don’t want to say a number but we aren’t using hardly any.”

In total, Alabama has seen 20,590 positive cases with 714 deaths, while 11,395 have recovered as of June 8.