Objectives: Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a global pandemic currently spreading rapidly across the United States. We provide a comprehensive look at COVID-19 epidemiology across the state of Georgia, which includes vast rural communities that may be disproportionately impacted by the spread of this infectious disease.
Methods: All 159 Georgia counties were included in this study. We examined the geographic variation of COVID-19 in Georgia from March 3 through April 24, 2020 by extracting data on incidence and mortality from various national and state datasets. We contrasted county-level mortality rates per 100,000 population (MRs) by county-level factors.
Results: Metropolitan Atlanta had the overall highest number of confirmed cases; however, the southwestern rural parts of Georgia, surrounding the city of Albany, had the highest bi-weekly increases in incidence rate. Among counties with >10 cases, MRs were highest in the rural counties of Randolph (233.2), Terrell (182.5), Early (136.3), and Dougherty (114.2). Counties with the highest MRs (22.5-2332 per 100,000) had a higher proportion of: non-Hispanic Blacks residents, adults aged 60+, adults earning <$20,000 annually, and residents living in rural communities when compared with counties with lower MRs. These counties also had a lower proportion of the population with a college education, lower number of ICU beds per 100,000 population, and lower number of primary care physicians per 10,000 population.
Conclusions: While urban centers in Georgia account for the bulk of COVID-19 cases, high mortality rates and low critical care capacity in rural Georgia are also of critical concern.
Keywords: COVID‐19; Georgia; SARS‐CoV‐2; epidemiology; geographic distribution; geospatial; incidence; novel coronavirus; social determinants.
© 2020 The Authors. JACEP Open published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of the American College of Emergency Physicians.