First vaccine doses come amid hospital spike

North alabama.

New at ten... nearly nine months into the pandemic - marshall county continues to be one of the hardest hit areas in north alabama.

Today - the county tied for the fourth highest number of new cases - adding 121.

It also has a test positivity rate of more than 50 percent.

On top of that - more than 19- percent of all the cases in marshall county have come just in the last 16 days.

Waay 31's will robinson-smith visited a family clinic in albertville that recently added rapid testing.

He's live after learning what impact it's having on the community.

Staff members at rapid care family medical clinic say they're seeing immediate response to the rapid test.

They say the additional data is good for the community and for individuals.

Dakota cox is back on the job today at rapid care family medical clinic in albertville.

Wednesday was his first day back after testing positive for covid-19 more than two weeks ago.

Dakota cox, recently recovered from covid-19 when i got my first positive test, the rapid, i didn't have any symptoms. but day three, i lost my taste and smell and i got really short of breath.

Cox is one of a growing number of people who are opting to get a rapid test.

His employer -- rapid care -- is the newest location in marshall county to offer the service.

Nurse practitioner eric hagood says they've seen about a 30 percent increase in patients coming in -- or about 20-30 more people each day -- since they added the rapid test.

Eric hagood, nurse practitioner, rapid care family medical clinic and that's just in the first week.

So, what we're going to see in the future, we'll see.

Will robinson-smith right now, the clinic has the ability to run about 120 of these tests per day and once they take a test sample from the patient, they get run through this quidel machine and in about 15 minutes, the test results come out, in about two, one... and there you go: came back negative.

Clinical manager julia acrey oversees the lab at rapid care.

She's hopeful that giving people a faster testing option will let them know more quickly what kind of community impact small family gatherings are really having.

Julia acrey, clinical manager, rapid care family medical clinic if they're able to get that rapid to see immediately, oh hey, maybe they're seeing the errors of their ways and we're changing maybe the culture right now.

Cox says he's encouraged to see more people trusting in rapid testing now, than earleir in the pandemic.

We're seeing them being more accurate now, they've advanced them and it's more accurate.

The majority of people that come in request the rapid test.

Hagood says the clinic is also working with the alabama department of public health and will be among the sites that will offer covid vaccines to the public.

The beginning of that process is still a bit down the road.

Reporting live in huntsville, will robinson-smith, waay 31 news.