COBB COUNTY, Ga. — With Gov. Brian Kemp's order to begin Georgia's reopening process turning two weeks old today, 11Alive is looking at how things have developed since then.
It's understood that, because of how the coronavirus takes time to incubate and how symptoms develop, there is a distinct lag between the conditions that create cases and when we actually recognize whether those conditions created more or fewer cases.
Two weeks from the day businesses such as salons, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys were allowed to reopen - albeit under strict guidelines - does not give us a perfect understanding of the implications of Georgia's reopening.
Nothing could, given how we only have imperfect data to work with (for a number of reasons), and given that there are more factors that go into the rise and fall of cases than just the governor's orders.
But we do have good data, and we can get a decent sense of how things are going. It will take weeks to have a true concrete sense of what resulted from reopen, but that doesn't mean we can't glance now at how things stand.
Cobb County
At 11Alive, we're using a 14-day moving average to look at case totals. Case totals can be an imperfect indicator and do not offer a definitive answer to the most important question - is the coronavirus situation here getting better or worse?
But it is one of the most significant benchmarks in President Trump's guidelines for reopening the country, and therefore one of the things we - and everyone else - has to try and assess.
Why a 14-day average? Again, it's the standard presented by the White House.
In Cobb County, there has been a fairly consistent plateau - cases neither really going up or down - since about mid-April.
However, the county's highest single-day total yet - 123 newly reported cases on Wednesday - came this week. Because of the way cases are reported, confirmed and logged, you can't draw much of any conclusions from single-day totals or day-to-day swings.
But there were other large-spike days on May 1 and May 2 (as well as, it should be noted, a very low total on May 3). If there were more of those next week, it could suggest increased activity in Cobb County stemming from the late-April reopening of the state is bringing about a rise in cases.
11Alive is focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. We want to keep you informed about the latest developments while ensuring that we deliver confirmed, factual information.
We will track the most important coronavirus elements relating to Georgia on this page. Refresh often for new information.
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