Health officials alarmed by rising case count, urge public to follow guidelines

JACKSON, Tenn. — Since Sunday, we’ve had 80 new cases of COVID-19 in Madison County, and it looks like the number will keep rising, which has hospital officials worried.

“I would ask the community to pray for our staff. It’s concerning. I don’t mean to be emotional, but I worry about them,” said West Tennessee Healthcare Chief Communications and Compliance Officer Amy Garner. “And I would ask the community to worry about them too and take some responsibility and do the right thing.”

The hospital has so many positive COVID-19 patients, they’ve had to open a new unit for non-ICU patients. In addition, any furloughed worker qualified to work with COVID-19 patients has been brought back to help.

Dr. Priscilla Sioson is an infectious disease physician and has been at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital for 28 years.

“Definitely this COVID-19 surge is something I have never seen. We’ve all be overwhelmed by the number of patients we’re seeing in the hospital,” Sioson said.

Since the mask mandate was put into effect Saturday, the health department has gotten several calls to their hotline from employers asking what they need to require and calls from community members about businesses not following the mandate.

“I think Monday, in a perfect world, the employers would have followed the mandate and the public would have followed the mandate. We know that’s not happening. We just want to continue to educate the best we can and encourage these employers to follow the mandate,” said Jackson-Madison County Regional Health Department Director Kim Tedford.

And what happens if an employee tests positive at a retail business?

“We rely on that employer to help us identify other employees that maybe that particular employee had close contact with,” Tedford said. “And then we will be reaching out to those contacts as well and those contact will have to quarantine for 14 days.”

Another concern: The counties surrounding Jackson.

Other counties around Jackson are having just as big of an impact as everyone here in Madison County. WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News Reporter Josh Robinson asked if they are reaching out to those other mayors and seeing if a mask mandate or something like that is on the table for those counties.

“We are Josh. We told them what we’re experiencing here at Jackson General and West Tennessee Healthcare and this number today where 85 percent of the patients in the hospital with COVID are from other counties. I don’t think they realized the impact their people have on this hospital system,” said Madison County Mayor Jimmy Harris.

So please wear a mask out in public, wash your hands often and continue to practice social distancing.

The age group with the highest percentage of cases in Madison County are 21 to 30 year old at 19 percent, followed by 51 to 60 years old at 18 percent.