Although Tift County now labeled COVID-19 ‘red zone’, officials say not to panic

ALBANY, Ga. – Areas reporting more than 101 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents are designated red zones. Tift County has recently earned the infamous title. As of Wednesday, the Georgia Department of Public Health reports that in the last two weeks Tift County has 279 Covid-19 cases per 100,000.

While that number may seem alarming, Tift County Public Health officials say that looking at cases per 100,000 residents can be misleading.

“In Tift County we don’t currently have an outbreaks or anything like that. We just encourage everyone especially if you’re showing symptoms or if you’ve had a known exposure to go ahead and get tested,” says South Public Health District Public Information Officer Kristin Patten.

And although technically considered a red zone, the county’s residents aren’t going out to get tested. Tift County Public Health Department is performing around 21-50 COVID-19 tests a day.

“We have noticed across all ten of our counties in the last three weeks a drop off in testing actually. We haven’t been seeing very many people be tested.”

In a town like Tifton, where the population is barely pushing past 40,000, tracking cases by the 100 thousands isn’t ideal.

“We’re seeing in a lot of our smaller counties This per 100,000 it does kind of make it seem like cases are increasing more dramatically than what might be the case.”

Patten says the South District Public Health Department updates their case numbers daily, and that those numbers are much less deceiving.