May 28: Augusta CVS pharmacies join in COVID-19 testing as cases, deaths mount in Georgia

CVS Health announced Thursday that three pharmacies in Augusta will join its statewide and national string of drive-thru testing sites as COVID-19 cases and deaths mount in Georgia, including new deaths in Augusta. Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University also got a hefty grant to help it improve rapid screening for COVID-19 that could aid some rural providers.

CVS will offer the testing at pharmacies in Augusta at 3231 Wrightsboro Road, 2703 Washington Road, and 2559 Windsor Spring Road. The company added them as part of 23 new testing sites across Georgia as it seeks to open 1,000 nationwide, according to a new release.

Customers will use the drive-thru to get a self-swabbing test kit and instructions on how to properly use it. An employee will also watch to ensure it is done correctly, the company said. Anyone who wants to be tested must first register at CVS.com.

MCG got a $113,744 grant from the Federal Communications Commission that will allow it to buy nine portable ultrasound machines that could be used throughout the Emergency Departments and Intensive Care Units of AU Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Georgia. Ultrasound is a very fast way of looking for the distinctive signs of COVID-19 in a patient’s lung, which appears as a certain pattern of vertical lines, said Dr. Matthew Lyon, director of the Center for Ultrasound Education at MCG.

“It’s very different from community-acquired pneumonia or hospital-acquired pneumonia” on ultrasound, he said. It is particularly useful with pediatric patients “because in children we don’t give them radiation unless we have to so lung ultrasound helps really differentiate” from other causes, Lyon said. The same technology is already in use in some rural Emergency Departments that AUMC has linked up with, he said.

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Georgia saw a moderate increase of 628 new COVID-19 cases overnight to hit 45,266 but a big bump in 40 more deaths to raise the state’s toll to 1,973, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported. After reporting three new deaths in Richmond County earlier in the day, the state reduced that toll by one late Thursday for a cumulative total of now 22 and pushing the area’s death toll to 44.

Richmond County had 13 new cases of COVID-19 to increase to 576 and Columbia County had six new cases to reach 243. Screven County saw three new cases to reach 50, McDuffie County had two more to 67 and Jefferson had one new case to 33. Burke County dropped two cases to now 121. All other area counties were unchanged: Wilkes at 33, Jenkins at 19, Warren at 18, Lincoln at 16 and Taliaferro and Glascock at one each.

University Hospital had one new patient to push its cumulative total to 270, with only 11 patients now in the hospital, spokeswoman Rebecca Sylvester said. There were also 70 negative results to increase to 2,623, she said.

Doctors Hospital of Augusta saw two more cases of COVID-19 to increase its total to 68, with nine patients being treated in the hospital and another 10 waiting for test results, spokesman Peter Moberg said.

Georgia Public Health has now received the results of 523,359 tests, including 78,173 antibody tests, which would cover 4.93 percent of the 10.6 million people in Georgia. Of the 4,768 new tests, 6.17 percent were positive, a slight decline from the rate of eight percent reported Wednesday, and 8.58 percent of all tests have turned up positive, which has been unchanged this week.

South Carolina saw just 165 new COVID-19 cases Thursday to increase to 10,788 cases with four new deaths to reach 470. AIken County saw five new to 189 cases with seven deaths and Edgefield County had two more to 51 cases with two deaths. The Department of Health and Environmental Control has received the results of 187,788 tests, which would cover 3.65 percent of the state’s 5.15 million people. Since testing began, 5.74 percent of tests have come back positive in South Carolina, with just 2.6 percent positive on Wednesday.

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