To assist with the epidemiology surge capacity at the county level, Drs. Neel Gandhi and Sarita Shah, have been performing nasal swab testing at the Fulton County Board of Health drive through and mobile COVID-19 testing sites, along with mobile outreach sites. In addition to providing guidance and technical assistance on data analytics and visualizations on the County’s epidemiologic reports, Drs. Gandhi and Shah along with Dr. Allison Chamberlain, have recruited multiple students and staff from Rollins to assist with case investigations.
Persons under investigation (PUIs) who tested positive were less likely to provide any contacts. This difference may be related to a sense of stigma among people testing positive for having engaged in activities known to foster transmission, thus leading to a reluctance to provide contacts
Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous persons in the United States have an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and death from COVID-19, due to persistent social inequities. However, the magnitude of the disparity is unclear because race/ethnicity information is often missing in surveillance data.
Emory University researchers, in collaboration with Fulton County Board of Health (FCBOH), have found that testing for COVID-19 in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) before cases were known to occur resulted in lower overall COVID-19 cases. The results of the study were recently published in CDC’s MMWR Early Release report.
The Confounder Team spoke with three of the Emory EPI students working with the Fulton County Board of Health (FCBOH) COVID response efforts. These students are directly engaged in front line epidemiology work, employing analytic and communication strategies to understand COVID’s impact on the local community and put together reports for the public