We know you have questions so we have put this list of the most frequent questions, along with their answers, here. We will continue to add questions to this page as new ones are brought to our attention. If you have a question that is not in our list, or that you can't find on the CDC website, please send those questions to us on our "Ask a Question" page.
There is a lot of good information posted on the Coronavirus website at the CDC. You can refer to that site for answers to many of your Coronavirus questions.
The difference in the numbers is based on the resident of the patient. There are tests performed in Ben Hill County on residents of counties other than Ben Hill. If one of those tests are positive that case will NOT be reported in our totals.
Because a person can be tested anywhere tests are available for COVID-19, the numbers are not always available to the Ben Hill County EMA. If a Ben Hill county resident is tested in another county or another state, there is no way for the Ben Hill County EMA to know about that test. The testing lab is required to report the information to the GA Department of Public Health, but DPH does not report that information to the EMA in each county. When this happens, the first time Ben Hill County EMA is aware of a positive test is when the numbers are updated on the DPH web site. In this case, EMA numbers will be updated to reflect those changes at 5 pm.
Yes and no. As we have explained in other answers, the information we provide is what's made available to the Ben Hill County EMA. There is no restriction on where a patient can be tested for COVID-19. If a patient is tested outside of Ben Hill County, then our numbers will not reflect that test unless there is a positive result posted on the GA DPH site. If that happens, the numbers we have will be updated at 5 pm to reflect that new information.