The average number of COVID-19 cases per day rose quickly in early December in Anderson County, and the number has been generally slowly falling since December 7.
It’s not clear if the abrupt rise in early December was related to family gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving was about 1.5 weeks before the early December peak of 28.7 new cases per day on December 7.
By Sunday, the seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in Anderson County had fallen to 22.4 per day, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Health.
The average number of cases has averaged in the 20s so far in December. That’s up from an average in the teens starting in late October but still far below the peak of an average 89.6 new cases per day on September 11. That peak was the height of the summertime delta surge in Anderson County.
It’s also not clear yet how the surge in cases driven by the new omicron variant might affect Anderson County, and whether an increase in cases might also result in either more hospitalizations or deaths. Also unclear is whether the omicron variant might generally cause less severe disease and how the health care system might be affected by a surge in new cases. Experts and doctors continue to advocate caution, vaccinations, and the use of other public health measures such as testing and masks.
In Anderson County, there have been 14,039 COVID-19 cases reported since the pandemic began March 20, 2020. Infections have been reported among roughly 18% of the county’s residents.
There have been 242 deaths and 325 hospitalizations since the pandemic began. That’s about a 1.7% fatality rate and a 2.3% hospitalization rate.
The late summer surge driven by the delta variant followed other surges in July 2020 and a winter surge, the worst of the pandemic, that started in November and December 2020 and continued into January 2021.
The positivity rate in Anderson County remains high. The positivity rate measures the number of positive COVID-19 tests out of all new tests each day. On Tuesday, the Tennessee Department of Health reported that the seven-day average positivity rate was 11.5%. The positivity rate is generally higher now than it was in late October and early November.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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