The Northeast Health District added 625 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases to a new high of 412.6 cases per day. Fifty-six of those new cases were in Oconee County, and 100 were in Clarke County.
The Northeast Health District also added one death in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report. The Department of Community Health did not list any deaths in its Thursday Long-Term Care Facility Report.
The Northeast Health District added 494 new cases of COVID-19 and seven deaths from the disease with the release of state health department reports on Wednesday. Two of the deaths were in Clarke County.
Three of the deaths were listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, and four were listed in the Department of Community Health Long-Term Care Facility Report, also distributed by the Department of Public Health.
The Northeast Health District added 779 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the largest number ever added in a single day, as well as four deaths from the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health and Department of Community Health reports.
Two of the deaths were listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report and were of an 80-year-old male in Barrow County with a chronic condition and of an 81-year-old male in Jackson County with a chronic condition.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration on Monday unanimously rejected a challenge by Oconee County resident Patricia Daugherty on behalf of Houston, Texas, based True The Vote of the eligibility of 1,450 Oconee County voters to participate in the Jan. 5 runoff election.
The motion passed by the Board said there was no probable cause of a violation of Georgia law that would render the voters ineligible to cast a ballot.
Kirk Shook, the Republican Party representative on the Board, made the motion to reject the challenge, and Ken Davis, the Democratic Party representative on the Board, offered the second.
Oconee County lost a dedicated citizen activist who cared immensely about its political and social life on Monday morning when Sarah Bell found peace after a difficult struggle with cancer.
Sarah ran for office, coordinated candidate forums, engaged in historical research, and spoke up at meeting after meeting on issues of importance to her and this county.
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| As A Candidate 2011 |
Sarah volunteered to help me with this blog about 10 years ago. We made a deal. I would buy a camera and tripod. She would attend meetings I could not attend and video record them. I would use the video in my reporting and upload it to Vimeo for anyone wishing to make use of it.
The Northeast Health District added 151 COVID-19 cases on Monday, the smallest number added in three weeks, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped for the second day in a row.
The District added a death in Oconee County and another in Clarke County in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report and two deaths in Clarke County and one in Elbert County in the Department of Community Health Long-Term Care Facility Report.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration has three options when it meets at 5 p.m. on Monday to hear a challenge of the eligibility of selected registered voters to cast a ballot in the Jan. 5 runoff election, according to County Attorney Daniel Haygood.
The Board can find probable cause and challenge each of the voters on a list provided to the Board by Patricia Daugherty, 5041 Price Mill Road, west of Bishop, Haygood said. Challenged voters could be allowed to vote, but their ballots would be provisional, he said.
The Northeast Health District added 237 cases of COVID-19 on Sunday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report. The Report contained no new added deaths in the District from the disease.
The District actually added 238 confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests, but the District had a net loss of one case based on antigen tests, reflecting the irregularity of laboratory reporting on the weekends and following the Friday holiday.
The Northeast Health District added 302 cases of COVID-19 with the release of Saturday’s Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health as well as three deaths attributed to the disease--one each in Clarke, Barrow, and Madison counties
The Clarke County death was of an 81-year-old male without a chronic condition. The Barrow County death was of a 73-year-old female with a chronic condition. The Madison County death was of a 60-year-old male without a chronic condition.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 300 new cases of COVID-19 and one death from the disease in holiday reporting on Friday.
The Oconee County death was of an 86-year-old male without a chronic condition. The death brings to 39 the number in the county attributed to the disease.
The Northeast Health District added a record number of COVID-19 cases on Thursday–614–on a date the state broke 10,000 cases for the first time, with that volume of causing a delay in the issuance of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The Northeast Health District also added six deaths attributed to the disease, a number exceeded only three times–on Sept. 1, when 10 deaths were recorded, and on June 2 and on Sept. 18, when seven were recorded.
Two of those deaths were in Clarke County, one was in Barrow County, and three were in Jackson County.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. on Monday to respond to a challenge from Patricia Daughertry, 5041 Price Mill Road, west of Bishop, to the eligibility of more than 100 Oconee County registered voters to participate in the Jan. 5 runoff election.
Daugherty, who is active in Conservative Republican Woman of Northeast Georgia and challenged Sen. Bill Cowsert in the Republican primary in 2016, submitted a list of voters that she said “appear” to have moved out of the county.
Seven-day rolling averages of added COVID-19 cases increased in Oconee and Clarke counties and in the 10-county Northeast Health District as a whole on Wednesday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The Northeast Health District also added two deaths attributed to the disease in the Daily Status Report.
Oconee County added 44 new COVID-19 cases, and Clarke County added 95, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases in Oconee increased from 34.3 on Tuesday to 37.7 on Wednesday while the seven-day rolling average in Clarke County increased from 67.1 on Tuesday to 68.7 on Wednesday.
Oconee County recorded its third death attributed to COVID-19 in two days with the release on Tuesday of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The county also recorded 57 new cases of the disease, a new record.
The Oconee County death was the sole death listed in the the Daily Status Report for the 10-county Northeast Health District on Tuesday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in that Report held steady at 2.0.
The Northeast Health District added 287 COVID-19 cases on Monday when the Department of Public Health released its Daily Status Report and added two deaths from the disease–both in Oconee County.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases and deaths both increased with the release of the Monday Report.
The two Oconee County deaths were of a 51-year-old male without a chronic condition and of an 89-year-old male, also without a chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 374 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, 361 of them confirmed via molecular tests and 13 of them the product of rapid, antigen tests, as well as one of the two deaths from the disease reported in the state.
The death was of a 79-year-old female in Barrow County without a known chronic condition. The listing followed a death in the county in Saturday’s Daily Status Report and was the 63rd in the county attributed to the disease.
With the listing of 298 new cases of COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Saturday, the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the Northeast Health District increased to 380.9, up just slightly from the 379.4 average of Friday.
The 10-county Northeast Health District also added three deaths, including one in Clarke County, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the District increased to 1.7 on Saturday from 1.3 on Friday.
The Northeast Health District added 488 new cases of COVID-19–383 of them the result of molecular tests and 105 identified via antigen tests–and two deaths from the disease with the release of Friday’s Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
Both of the dead were residents of Walton County. One was a 66-year-old female without a known chronic condition and the other was an 87-year-old male, also without a known chronic condition.
The Department of Public Health reported 380 new cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests and 111 based on antigen tests in the Northeast Health District on Thursday, setting a new record of single day added cases of the disease and a record seven-day rolling average of added cases.
Oconee County also set a new record seven-day rolling average of added cases of 23.7, up from 20.6 on Wednesday, and Clarke County’s seven-day rolling average of added cases fell just slightly from 69.4 on Wednesday to 69.3 on Thursday.
More Oconee County voters have turned out on each of the first three days of early voting for the Jan. 5 runoff than turned on the first three days of early voting for the Nov. 3 general election, and the total number of votes cast in early voting stands at 4,123, or 12.9 percent of the county’s registered voters.
The number of absentee ballots returned so far (2,153), however, is behind the number received after the first three days of early voting in October for the November election.
The Northeast Health District added 390 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, which also listed three deaths in the District attributed to the disease.
The three deaths listed in the Daily Status Report were of an 85-year-old female in Elbert County without a chronic condition, a 28-year-old male in Jackson County without a known chronic condition, and an 83-year-old female in Walton County with a chronic condition.
The Department of Public Health reported a record number of COVID-19 cases–467--in the 10-county Northeast Health District on Tuesday, plus two deaths from the disease.
The Department of Community Health also reported a COVID-19 death at a long-term care facility in the Northeast Health District and a continued outbreak of the disease at Clarke County long-term care homes as well as at these facilities throughout the District.
Oconee County Schools since Friday has notified parents of at least 15 new active cases of COVID-19 at the county’s schools–tying the record number of active cases reported on Friday.
The Department of Public Health added 202 new COVID-19 cases in the Northeast Health District on Monday, and the Georgia Hospital Association reported that area hospitals added 29 new COVID-19 patients.
The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported that the number of COVID-19 patients at Region E hospitals reached 173, the largest number ever reported going back to May 8, when those data were first made public. The previous high was 152 on Dec. 8 and then 143 on Aug. 4 and 5.
The Northeast Health District added 308 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests, according to the Sunday Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, as well as 22 cases based on antigen tests. No new deaths from the disease were listed in the Report.
Based on the combined addition of 330 cases, the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 329.1, up from 295.1 average added cases on Saturday.
At the request of the property owner, Oconee County has postponed the public hearing scheduled for Monday on the proposal for a major shopping center at the corner of the Oconee Connector and Mars Hill Road.
Deferred Tax LLC of Lawrenceville, which owns the 47-acres being proposed for development, asked the county to postpone the Planning Commission meeting originally scheduled for Monday until Jan. 19, and the final vote of the Board of Commissioners until Feb. 2.
The Department of Public Health on Saturday reported 245 new cases of COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District based on molecular tests and an additional 43 based on antigen tests. The Report listed no new deaths from the disease in the District.
The combined seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped from 306.4 on Friday to 295.7 on Saturday.
Oconee County added 10 cases based on molecular tests and one based on antigen tests, while Clarke County added 57 cases based on molecular tests and 10 cases based on antigen tests.
The Northeast Health District added 377 COVID-19 cases and five deaths from the disease on Friday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, increasing the seven-day rolling averages of added cases and deaths.
One of the deaths listed in the Daily Status Report was of a 76-year-old Clarke County male without a chronic condition. The death brings to 57 the number in the county attributed to COVID-19.
The Northeast Health District on Thursday added 401 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests, the largest number ever added in a single day, plus 30 cases based on antigen tests, and one death attributed to the disease.
The 401 added cases compare with the previous high of 385 added on Sept. 5 and pushed the seven-day rolling average of added cases based on this test to 253.0, up from 231.4 on Wednesday, and the highest seven-day rolling average ever.
The Department of Public Health reported on Wednesday that the Northeast Health District added 280 confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests, 49 cases based on antigen tests, and three deaths attributed to the disease, including one in Clarke County.
The Department of Community Health also reported three deaths from the disease at area long-term care facilities, including one in Clarke County.
The Clarke County death listed in the Daily Status report was of a 57-year-old male with a chronic condition. His death brings to 56 the number of deaths from the disease in Clarke County based on the official count of the Department of Public Health.
A shopping center needs entrances, and Sembler Corporation, a shopping center developer out of St. Petersburg, Fla., has proposed that its planned $50 million commercial center at the corner of Mars Hill Road and the Oconee Connector have six.
The main entrance that is proposed is off the Oconee Connector, about half way between SR 316 and the Connector’s intersection with Mars Hill Road and Daniells Bridge Road.
Property owner Deferred Tax LLC, which is seeking approval from the county for its plans, has said it will seek permission from the state to install a traffic light that will allow traffic from all directions to enter and leave the shopping center.
The Department of Public Health reported 155 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests in the Northeast Health District on Tuesday and 177 cases based on antigen tests.
The Department of Public Health did not report any new COVID-19 deaths in the 10-county Northeast Health District, but the Department of Community Health reported four new deaths, three of them at a Clarke County nursing home and the fourth at a personal care home in Walton County.
The Northeast Health District on Monday added 255 COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests and 22 cases based on antigen tests. The District also added two deaths attributed to the disease, and area hospitals reported that a quarter of their patients have COVID-19.
With the addition of the 255 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests, the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 227.9 on Monday from 208.6 on Sunday.
That rolling average–227.9–is the highest ever in the 10-county Northeast Health District. The previous high had been 227.3 on Sept. 6.
For the second time in three months, Oconee County government and Oconee County schools got a pleasant surprise with the release last week of monthly sale tax distributions by the Georgia Department of Revenue.
Revenue was up 41 percent in October over the same month a year ago for the county’s Local Option Sales Tax, Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, and Education Local Option Sales Tax.
The Northeast Health District added 91 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular testing, five cases based on antigen testing, and a death from the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Sunday.
The death was of an 83-year-old male in Elbert County with a chronic condition. Elbert County now has 21 confirmed deaths listed in the Daily Status Report, and the District has 359.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased to 1.1 from 1.0 on Saturday.
The Northeast Health District added 286 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests and another 77 cases based on rapid antigen testing with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Saturday.
The seven-day rolling average of added molecular cases increased to 210.9 from 190.7 on Friday, and the seven-day rolling average of added antigen cases increased to 56.4 on Saturday from 47.9 on Friday.
The Northeast Health District added 303 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday, the most cases added in a single day since Sept. 5.
The District also added 53 cases identified by antigen tests, which the Department of Public Health has been reporting only since Nov. 3.
The District also added two deaths from the disease and one death that the Department of Public Health listed as “probable,” meaning it is likely to have been caused by the disease.
Seven-day rolling averages of added COVID-19 cases and deaths increased in the Northeast Health District on Thursday as the state Department of Public Health reported 250 new confirmed cases of the disease based on molecular tests, 58 cases based on antigen tests, and two confirmed deaths.
Every county added at least five cases based on molecular tests, with Oconee County adding 15 and Clarke County adding 66. The rolling average of added cases increased in both counties, with the average in Oconee County at its highest point ever.
The Department of Public Health on Wednesday reported 239 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests and 79 based on antigen tests in the 10-county Northeast Health District plus three deaths attributed to the disease.
The 239 added confirmed cases based on the molecular test are the most added in the District since Sept. 8 and pushed the seven-day rolling average of added cases to 156.1, its highest level since Sept. 15.
Developers are moving forward with a planned $50 million commercial development at the intersection of the Oconee Connector and Mars Hill Road that would include a Publix, a gas station with convenience store, and a bank in its initial phase.
In a second phase, the project concept plan shows restaurants, hotels, retail outlets, and an auto dealership.
The primary access to the property will be off the Oconee Connector, but the concept plan also shows five entrances off Mars Hill Road, including a major one opposite the current DaAndra Drive intersection with Mars Hill Road.
Oconee County voters overwhelmingly picked James Chafin in Tuesday’s runoff election for District Attorney of the Western Judicial Circuit, but their votes were offset by votes in Clarke County, and Deborah Gonzalez won with 51.7 percent of the final vote.
Turnout was higher in Oconee County, with 30.5 percent of the county’s 30,071 voters casting a ballot compared with 22.0 percent of Clarke County’s 76,779 voters.
The Department of Public Health reported on Tuesday that the 10 counties in the Northeast Health District added 171 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests and an additional 106 cases based on rapid antigen tests.
The seven-day rolling average for cases based on both tests increased.
For the third day in a row, the Daily Status Report listed no new confirmed COVID-19 deaths from the disease. The seven-day rolling average of added confirmed deaths in the Daily Status report dropped from 1.3 on Monday to 1.1 on Tuesday.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock, in a retrospective on the Nov. 3 election for Oconee County Republicans, said the Democratic victory in the presidential race in Georgia was the result of trends a long time in the making.
“The state has been changing,” Bullock said. “This is not something that has happened over night.” The highwater point for Republicans came in 2004, and since that time Republican strength in the state has been on the decline, he said.
The Northeast Health District added 120 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests and 23 cases based on the rapid antigen test in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Monday.
For the second day in a row, the 10-county District did not add any deaths attributed to the novel corona virus in the Daily Status Report.
The Department of Community Health, however, in it Long-Term Care Facility Report on Monday, listed a death of a resident of High Shoals Health and Rehabilitation nursing home, 3450 New High Shoals Road in the west of Oconee County.
The Northeast Health District added 107 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests with release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Sunday. The Daily Status Report listed no new confirmed deaths attributed to the disease.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases in the District increased to 135.9 on Sunday from 132.3 on Saturday.
Every county in the 10-county District added at least one case. Oconee County added 12 cases and Clarke County added 16. In both counties, the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased on Sunday from Saturday.
The Northeast Health District added a death from COVID-19 on Saturday and 162 new cases of the disease as the Department of Public Health released is Daily Status Report.
The death was of a female in Walton County without a chronic condition identified as 90 or more years of age. The death brings to 77 the number attributed to COVID-19 in Walton County and to 351 the number of deaths from the disease in the 10-County Northeast Health District.
***Labor Department Data Show Signs of Economic Recovery***
The Northeast Health District added two deaths attributed to COVID-19 with the release of the Friday Daily Status Report, 123 confirmed cases of the disease based on molecular testing, and 30 cases identified through antigen tests.
The deaths were of a 69-year-old male in Barrow County without a chronic condition and of a 78-year-old male in Walton County, also without a chronic condition. The death brings to 57 the number in Barrow County from the disease, to 76 the number in Walton County, and to 350 the number in the Northeast Health District.
The Northeast Health District added 188 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular testing on Thursday, the largest number the 10-county District has added since Sept. 15–and an additional 39 cases based on rapid antigen tests.
The seven-day rolling average of added confirmed cases in the Department of Public Health Daily Status report increased from 133.3 on Wednesday to 137.4 on Thursday. The last time the seven-day rolling average was that high in the District was on Sept. 18.
The Northeast Health District added five deaths attributed to COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Wednesday, 138 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests, and 51 cases based on antigen rapid tests.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased from 1.4 deaths per day on Tuesday to 1.6 on Wednesday, the seven-day rolling average of added cases based on the molecular test increased from 129.7 to 133.3, and the seven-day rolling average of added antigen cases dropped from 49.1 to 46.9.
The Northeast Health District added 143 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday based on molecular testing and 38 cases based on rapid antigen tests. It also added three deaths from the disease.
One of the deaths was listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report and was of an 89-year-old male in Jackson County with a chronic condition.
The Department of Public Health and the Department of Community Health reported five deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District on Monday, two of them in Clarke County.
The Department of Public Health also reported 107 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the 10- county Northeast Health District, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases to 131.7 from 121.1 on Sunday. That rolling average has now increased each of the last seven days.
Area hospitals reported strain from the progression of the disease.
James Chafin said repeatedly in appearances during the campaign for District Attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit that he chose to run in the special election without a party label because he wanted to keep party politics out of the courtroom where the District Attorney operates.
Intentionally or not, his decision led to a campaign with strong partisan undertones that has spilled over into the runoff that will take place on Dec. 1 and for which early voting began on Monday morning.
The Northeast Health District added 82 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Sunday Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased for the sixth day in a row.
The confirmed cases are based on molecular tests, and the Daily Status Report subtracted four cases reported earlier based on the less reliable, rapid, antigen tests.
The Daily Status Report on Sunday did not report any new deaths attributed to the novel corona virus in the 10-county Northeast Health District.
The Northeast Health District added 163 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday based on molecular tests and 174 cases based on antigen rapid tests as well as four deaths from the disease with the release of the Daily Status Report.
One of the added deaths was in Oconee County, and another was in Clarke County.
The seven-day rolling average of added confirmed cases based on the molecular test as well as added cases from the less reliable antigen tests increased, as did the rolling average of added deaths in the 10-county District.
President Donald Trump gained one vote in Oconee County and Joseph Biden lost two votes as a result of the Risk-Limiting Audit Full Hand Count of the presidential vote completed locally on Monday.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the results on Friday, and Gov. Brian Kemp announced he would sign the paperwork to allocate Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes to Biden.
Trump has two days to demand yet another audit, this one conducted by machine, since he lost by less than a half percentage point. The final gap statewide was 12,284 votes, or 0.2 percentage points.
With the addition of 141 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests, 68 cases based on antigen rapid tests, and one death, the seven-day rolling average of the three indicators of the disease increased in the Northeast Health District on Friday.
The death listed in the Friday Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health was of a 76-year-old male with a chronic condition in Oconee County.
The Northeast Health District added 159 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests, 27 cases based on antigen or rapid tests, and a death from the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Thursday.
The 159 confirmed cases pushed up the seven-day rolling average of added cases based on the molecular test to 112.9 from 111.3 on Wednesday. The trend has been toward increased cases going back to Oct. 8.
The Department of Public Health listed four additional deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District with release of the Daily Status Report on Wednesday as well as 113 confirmed cases of the disease based on molecular tests and 27 cases based on rapid antigen tests.
The four deaths listed in the Wednesday Daily Status Report were of a 90-plus-year-old female in Clarke County without a chronic condition, of an 81-year-old male in Elbert County without a chronic condition, of a 77-year-old female in Jackson County with a chronic condition, and of a 90-plus-year-old male in Morgan County without a chronic condition.
The Department of Community Health reported six new COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities in the Northeast Health District on Tuesday, the largest number of new deaths listed in a single day in the Department’s Long-Term Care Facility Report since the end of May.
The Department of Public Health added 157 cases of COVID-19 confirmed via molecular tests in its Daily Status Report on Tuesday, the largest number of added cases based on this test since September 16.
Across the state, the Georgia Department of Public Health listed 3,603 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the highest number reported since Aug. 12.
The Northeast Health District added 33 COVID-19 cases confirmed by molecular tests on Monday and three positive cases based on antigen tests, according to the Department of Public Health. The Department did not list any deaths in the Monday Daily Status Report.
The Department of Community Health on Monday, however, reported a massive outbreak of COVID-19 at Magnolia Estates personal care home in Elberton in Elbert County that included two deaths.
The Long-Term Care Facility Report of the Department of Community Health listed 29 COVID-19 Positive Residents at the Elberton personal care home that had not been listed in the Friday report–the most recent until Monday–and an increase from two to 18 COVID-19 Positive Staff.
The Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health listed 69 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Northeast Health District on Sunday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased for the fifth day in a row to 104.1 cases per day.
Sundays generally are a light reporting day, and Morgan and Greene counties did not add any cases, but each of the remaining eight counties in the Northeast Health District added at least one case.
Oconee County added two cases, and Clarke County added 13 cases. For both counties, the seven-day rolling average of added cases fell just slightly on Sunday.
The Northeast Health District added 125 COVID-19 cases confirmed by molecular tests, 27 cases based on antigen tests, and one death from the disease with the release of the Georgia Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Saturday.
The 125 confirmed cases from the molecular tests pushed up the seven-day rolling average of added cases to 102.7 on Saturday from 99.9 on Friday.
Each of the 10 counties in the Northeast Health District added at least one case, with Oconee County adding three cases and Clarke County adding 36. The seven day rolling average of added cases dropped just slightly in Oconee County and increased by a small amount in Clarke County.
The Northeast Health District added 134 new COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests in Friday’s Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, resulting in an increase in the rolling average of added cases per day to just less than 100 cases.
The Northeast Health District also added 34 cases resulting from positive antigen or rapid tests, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases based on that test declined to 45.0 from 51.3 on Thursday.
The Daily Status Report did not add any new deaths from the disease with the release of the Daily Status Report on Friday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped from 2.4 on Thursday to 1.9 on Friday.
Oconee County Elections officials will begin at 9 a.m. on Friday at the Board of Elections and Registration Office at 10 Court Street in Watksinville what is being called a Risk Limiting Audit of the 25,399 votes cast in the county in the Nov. 3 election.
Cameras will record the work of the elections teams in the room where the audit is being conducted, according to Jennifer Stone, assistant director of Elections and Registration for the county.
Citizens can sit in the lobby of the Elections and Registration Office and watch the work of the auditors as it progresses.
Reflecting trends across the state as a whole, the Northeast Health District added 148 confirmed COVID-19 cases based on molecular tests on Thursday, 48 cases based on antigen tests, and four deaths, pushing up the rolling averages in each of the measures of the disease.
The deaths were of a 61-year-old male in Barrow County without a chronic condition, a 62-year-old male in Jackson County with a chronic condition, a 71-year-old female in Walton County without a chronic condition, and an 84-year-old male in Walton County with a chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 123 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, 88 of them confirmed via molecular tests and 35 identified with antigen rapid tests, and two deaths from the disease, according to Georgia Department of Public Health data.
The deaths listed by the Department of Public Health in the Daily Status Report were of an 80-year-old female in Greene County without a chronic condition and of a 90-plus-year-old male in Jackson County without a known chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 105 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday based on molecular tests and 136 cases based on antigen tests as well as two deaths–both in Oconee County–attributed to the disease.
The Oconee County deaths were of a 63-year-old male without a known chronic condition and of an 89-year-old male without a known chronic condition.
The two deaths in Oconee County pushed the county’s number of deaths in the Daily Status Report to 34. The county is the third-highest in the 10-county Northeast Health District in deaths per population.
The clear majority of voters in Athens-Clarke County would like to be represented in the Georgia General Assembly in January by Democrats.
Nearly six in 10 of Athens-Clarke voters cast a ballot for Democrat Mokah Jasmine Johnson in the 117th House District, and two-thirds voted for Democrat Jonathan Wallace in the 119th House District. Both of these Districts are only partially in Athens-Clarke County.
The Northeast Health District added 64 confirmed COVID-19 cases and two deaths from the disease with release of state health reports on Monday. One of the deaths was at a personal care home in Oconee County.
The Department of Community Health Long-Term Care Facility Report on Monday listed a death at Magnolia Estates of Oconee, 1641 Virgil Langford Road, south of SR 316. The new death brings to four the number attributed to COVID-19 at the home, which currently has 23 residents.
The Northeast Health District added 103 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Sunday and one death from the disease.
The death was of a 61-year-old male in Madison County without a known chronic condition.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased to 1.9 in the District, which had not reported a death from the disease on Sunday of last week.
The Northeast Health District added 119 confirmed COVID-19 cases with the Saturday release of the Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health and three deaths attributed to the disease.
Most of the cases–105–were the result of molecular tests, with the remaining 14 the result of antigen tests.
Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District except Oglethorpe added at least one case based on the molecular tests, with Oconee County adding four and Clarke county adding 33.
The Northeast Health District added four deaths from COVID-19, 109 confirmed cases of the disease based on molecular tests, and 78 cases based on antigen tests with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday.
The four deaths were of a female in Oconee County with chronic conditions listed as 90 plus years in age, a 68-year-old female in Barrow County without a chronic condition, an 82-year-old female in Barrow County without a known chronic condition, and a 78-year-old female in Elbert County with a chronic condition.
Oconee County now has 32 deaths attributed to COVID-19 and the third-highest death rate per population in the 10-county Northeast Health District. Barrow County has 54 deaths and Elbert has 13.
As of late morning on Thursday, Oconee County had a total of 31 outstanding military and overseas ballots that had not been counted, according to Jennifer Stone, assistant director of Elections and Registration for the county.
Stone said the office will continue to accept mailed ballots from military and overseas voters until 5 p.m. on Friday. Ballots have to have been postmarked by Tuesday.
In addition, five voters who used Provisional Ballots on Tuesday have until 5 p.m. on Friday to provide needed information to allow the county to count those ballots.
The Northeast Health District added 102 new COVID-19 confirmed cases based on molecular tests and another 31 based on antigen tests, according to the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Thursday.
The Daily Status Report also listed two confirmed deaths from the disease and one probable death. That probable death was in Clarke County.
Based on the molecular tests, the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the District dropped to 88.4 from 89.6 on Wednesday.
The Northeast Health District added 87 confirmed cases of COVID-19 based on molecular tests on Wednesday, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases for the third day in a row.
The 10-county District added one death from the disease in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The death was of a 67-year-old male from Walton County with a chronic condition.
Walton county now has 71 deaths from the disease in the Daily Status Report, the highest number in the Northeast Health District and the fourth highest in deaths per population, behind Greene County, Oglethorpe and Oconee County, in that order.
Oconee County Republicans gave little ground in the elections on Tuesday, holding at 70 percent of the vote in most of the national, state and local elections.
Donald Trump got 65.9 percent of the vote in the county, down from 67.4 four years ago. And Joseph Biden got 32.4 percent of the vote, up from the 28.0 percent of Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But Oconee County gave 72.2 percent of its vote to incumbent Republican Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell, 71.6 percent of its vote to incumbent Republican Tim Burgess in the race for Post 4 on the Board of Education, and 70.4 to Republican Michael Ransom in the Board of Education Post 5 race.
The Northeast Health District added 110 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases, consistent with the overall trend in the state.
The District added one death, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths remained unchanged at 1.6 deaths per day. The rolling average of added deaths increased at the state level.
The local death was of a 42-year-old male in Barrow County without a known chronic condition. The death was the 52nd in Barrow County. The District now has 311 deaths attributed to the disease.
The Northeast Health District added 55 new COVID-19 cases and one death attributed to the disease in the Monday Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health.
The additions pushed up the seven-day rolling average of added cases, while the seven-day rolling average of deaths remained unchanged.
The death was of a 75-year-old female in Elbert County without a chronic condition.
All four of the candidates seeking to represent Oconee County in the Georgia House of Representatives when redistricting will be considered say they are open to turning the process over to an independent commission.
Marcus Wiedower, the Republican currently representing House District 119, gave the most guarded response, saying “If there is a push and acceptance for a third party, I’m fine with that.” Wiedower said “I want to stay, quite frankly, as far away from that subject as I can.”
Former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson told Oconee County Democrats in August of last year that they didn’t have to flip Oconee County for the party to be successful statewide on Tuesday.
Tomlinson, then a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination to face U.S. Sen. David Perdue, said Oconee County Democrats only needed to shave three or four percentage points off the 69.8 percent of the vote Gov. Brian Kemp received in Oconee County in 2016.
Former Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond told local Democrats two months later that Oconee County is an excellent opportunity for Democrats because its looks a lot like the Atlanta suburbs turning Democratic because of the influence of college-educated women.
Republicans Bill Cowsert, Houston Gaines, and Marcus Wiedower, representing Oconee County in the Georgia General Assembly, have made it clear at recent gatherings of the Oconee County Republican Party that they, too, are very much focused on how Republican Oconee County votes this election.
The Northeast Health District added 65 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday and no deaths from the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
Sundays are normally light reporting days, but the 65 new cases compared with 77 added last Sunday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped from 82.3 on Saturday to 80.6 on Sunday.
Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District added at least one case. Oconee County added six cases and Clarke County added 17. The seven-day rolling average of added cases in both counties dropped slightly on Sunday from Saturday.
The Northeast Health District of the Department of Public Health added one COVID-19 death with the release of the Daily Status Report on Saturday and 131 new confirmed cases of the disease.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped slightly, but the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased.
The death was of a 79-year-old male in Walton County without a known chronic condition. Walton County also reported a COVID-19 death on Friday and now has 70 deaths listed in the Department of Public Health's Daily Status Report, the most of any of the 10 counties in the Northeast Health District.
Oconee and Clarke counties each added a death attributed to COVID-19 with the release of the Daily Status Report on Friday, two of four deaths from the disease in the Northeast Health District included in the Department of Public Health report.
The Department of Community Health also listed four deaths on Friday in the Northeast Health District in its Long-Term Care Facility Report, including one in Oconee County.
The Oconee County death listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status report was of a 76-year-old female without a known chronic condition. She is the 31st death in the county attributed to the disease.
Clarke and Jackson counties added deaths from COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Thursday. The 10-county Northeast Health District added 110 new confirmed cases of the disease.
The Clarke County death was of a 67-year-old female without a known chronic condition. Clarke County now has 49 deaths attributed to the disease.
The Jackson County death was of 90-plus-year-old female without a known chronic condition. Jackson County now has 42 deaths listed in the Daily Status Report.
The Northeast Health District added two deaths from COVID-19 and 82 new confirmed cases of the disease with the release of the Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health on Wednesday.
One of the deaths was in Elbert County and was of a male with no chronic condition who was listed as 90 plus in age. He is the ninth death in Elbert County listed in the Daily Status Report.
The other death was in Jackson County and was of a 34-year-old female without a known chronic condition. She is the 41st death from COVID-19 in that county.
In a rapid-fire presentation to Oconee County Republicans on Monday evening, U.S. Senate candidate Doug Collins attacked former Democratic presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and Democrats in general.
He also attacked Kelly Loeffler, his most prominent Republican rival in the special election to fill the unexpired seat of Johnny Isakson, saying “she has tried to smear me to make you think that I’m not a conservative.”
The Northeast Health District added a death from COVID-19 in both Clarke and Barrow counties on Tuesday with the Department of Public Health’s release of its Daily Status Report. The Report also added 64 newly confirmed cases of the disease.
The Clarke County death was of 76-year-old male with a chronic condition, and the Barrow County death was of a 59-year-old male, also with a chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 43 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and one death with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report. The seven-day rolling averages of cases and deaths remained unchanged from Sunday.
The death was of a 70-year-old male in Oglethorpe County without a chronic condition. Oglethorpe now has 13 deaths from the corona virus, and the Northeast Health District has 299.
Raphael Warnock, running as a Democrat in the special election for the U.S. Senate, told Oconee County Democrats earlier this month at the party’s virtual meeting that the country is facing a number of crises and the election underway is a particularly important one.
The country is being called on “to figure out how we navigate our way through this,” Warnock said. “And I think that on moral and practical grounds, we’ve got to see that the only way to do it is to do it together.”
The Northeast Health District added 77 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Sunday, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases for the eighth day in a row. The rolling average is the highest it has been since Sept. 21.
Every county except Morgan and Greene in the 10-county Northeast Health District added cases on Sunday, with Oconee County adding seven cases and Clarke County adding 21. The seven-day rolling average for both Oconee and Clarke counties increased slightly on Sunday over Saturday.
The Oconee County Board of Education currently has no plans to live stream its meeting, according to Anisa Sullivan Jimenez, director of Communications for Oconee County Schools.
The Board of Education switched from virtual to in-person meetings for its July 20 meeting and live streamed that meeting, but Jimenez said on Aug. 3 that future Board meetings would not be live streamed.
The Northeast Health District added 108 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday in the Department of Health Daily Status Report, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases for the seventh day in a row.
The District added three deaths attributed to COVID-19, including one in Oconee County, which had added two deaths from the disease on Friday.
The Oconee County death was of an 83-year-old female without a chronic condition. The death on Saturday brings to 30 the number of deaths in the County attributed to the disease.
Oconee County added two deaths attributed to COVID-19 and Clarke County added one with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday.
Morgan and Walton counties each also added a death, and the 10-County Northeast Health District’s rolling average of added deaths from the disease increased from 1.3 on Thursday to 1.9 on Friday.
The Northeast Health District also added 147 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Friday Daily Status Report, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases from 96.0 on Thursday to 99.4 on Friday. The rolling average has increased each of the last six days.
The Northeast Health District added 148 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, the largest number added in a single day since Sept. 16, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases is the highest it has been since Sept. 22. That rolling average has increased each of the last five days.
The regional trend mirrors that of the state, where the 1,824 new cases added on Thursday is the highest since Sept. 20, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases is the highest since Sept. 26. That rolling average has increased in each of the last three days.
The Northeast Health District added 116 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases to 89.0 from 87.0 the day earlier. That rolling average has increased each of the last four days.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report listed no new deaths in the Northeast Health District, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped to 1.4 on Wednesday from 1.7 on Tuesday.
The three Democratic candidates seeking to represent Oconee County in the General Assembly in January gave mostly similar answers to a wide range of questions, from the impact of redistricting on the county to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a virtual candidate forum on Monday night.
The three Republican incumbents chose not to participate in the citizen-organized forum, so only Democratic candidates, Mokah Johnson for House District 117, Jonathan Wallace for House District 119, and Zachary Perry for Senate District 46, were in the session.
The Northeast Health District added 102 COVID-19 cases and one death from the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Tuesday.
The seven-day rolling average of both cases and deaths increased slightly on Tuesday from Monday.
Every county in the 10-county District added cases, with Oconee County adding three and Clarke County adding 18. In both counties, the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped slightly on Tuesday from Monday.
The Northeast Health District added 44 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday in the Daily Status Report and one death, pushing up the seven-day rolling average for added cases but producing no change in the seven-day rolling average for added deaths.
The 44 cases were not evenly spread around the 10-county District. Clarke, Morgan and Oglethorpe counties did not add any cases. Oconee County added four cases, and Walton County added the most cases, 19.
The Northeast Health District added 66 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and two deaths from the disease on Sunday. The seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 83.0 on Sunday from 81.9 on Saturday.
Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District added at least two new confirmed cases on Sunday.
Adam Hammond, moderator at the candidate forum last week sponsored by the Oconee Chamber of Commerce and the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, posed a common question to Oconee County’s statehouse candidates.
“What are the three biggest needs in your district?” the former network anchor asked.
The Northeast Health District added four COVID-19 deaths and 73 confirmed cases of the disease with the release of the Daily Status Report by the Department of Public Health on Saturday.
The 10-county District had added four deaths on Saturday of last week, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths remained unchanged at 1.7.
The 73 added cases compared with 108 on last Saturday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped to 81.9 on Saturday from 86.9 on Friday. The rolling average had increased the last three days before Saturday’s report.
The Northeast Health District added 123 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Friday, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases to 86.9, the highest that figure has been since Sept. 24. The seven-day rolling average of added cases had been 85.6 on Thursday.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added one additional death, of a 79-year-old male in Greene County without a chronic condition. The death was the 25th in Greene County and the 282nd in the District as a whole.
The Northeast Health District added one death from COVID-19 with the release of the Daily Status Report by the Department of Public Health on Thursday and 99 newly confirmed cases of the disease.
The District has added at least one death every day but two going back to Sept. 25, and the seven day rolling average was 2.0 deaths per day. That average is unchanged from Wednesday.
The five Oconee County Board of Commissioners candidates participating in a virtual forum identified communication as the solution to the ongoing conflict between the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education.
Aaron Nowak, running as a Republican in the special election to fill vacant Post 3 on the Board of Commissioners, put all of the blame for the current problem on the Commissioners and said he would “communicate properly” with the School Board if elected.
The Northeast Health District had two new deaths from COVID-19 listed in the Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health on Wednesday and 102 new confirmed cases of the disease, resulting in small crops in the seven-day rolling averages of both deaths and cases.
The deaths were of a 64-year-old male in Jackson County with a chronic condition and of a 77-year-old female in Madison County without a known chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 83 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and, for the first time in a week, no new deaths attributed to the disease. The seven-day rolling averages of both cases and deaths were unchanged from Monday.
Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District added at least one case with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, with Oconee County adding five cases and Clarke County adding 24.
The seven-day rolling averages of added COVID-19 deaths and cases in the Northeast Health District held steady on Monday after three days of slight growth in both indicators.
The 10-county District added one new death–the same as on Monday a week ago--and 35 new cases, down from the 36 added a week ago, based on data released by the Department of Public Health in its Daily Status Report.
Aaron Nowak, running as a Republican in the special election for Post 3 on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners, introduced himself to Oconee County Republicans last month as a critic of the current Board of Commissioners and its policies and an advocate for conservative Republican values.
Nowak said his candidacy is based on three core ideas: thoughtful development, financial responsibility, and citizen engagement.
He said the current Board of Commissioners, made up entirely of Republicans, is failing on all three of these ideas.
The Northeast Health District added three deaths attributed to COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Sunday, pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the District for the third day in a row.
The District added 58 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, also pushing up the seven-day rolling average of added cases for the third day in a row.
The Northeast Health District added five deaths from COVID-19 spread across four of the District’s 10 counties on Saturday, and rolling averages of both deaths and new confirmed cases of the disease increased.
Two of the added deaths were in Elbert County, of a 72-year-old female with a chronic condition and of an 90 plus-year-old female with a chronic condition. These are the seventh and eighth deaths in the county listed in the Daily Status Report.
Oconee County Board of Commissioner candidates will meet virtually in a forum on Monday night during which citizens will have the opportunity to direct their questions to the candidates.
The citizen-organized forum will begin at 8 p.m. on Zoom with County Commission Post 3 candidates Jacob Douylliez, Amrey Harden, and Aaron Nowak introducing themselves and then responding to questions from citizens.
The Northeast Health District added four COVID-19 deaths–including one in Oconee County--with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday.
The Daily Status Report also added 114 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the seven-day rolling averages of both deaths and cases increased on Friday.
The Oconee County death was of a male identified as 90 plus in age with a chronic condition. Oconee County now has 27 deaths from the disease.
The Northeast Health District added three deaths attributed to COVID-19 with the release of state health department reports on Thursday and 79 new confirmed cases of the disease.
Two of the deaths–listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report--were of a 77-year-old female in Greene County without a chronic condition and of an 81-year-old female in Walton County with a chronic condition.
During the nearly hour-long candidate forum last week organized by The Oconee Enterprise, the three candidates in the special election for District Attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit responded to questions about topics ranging from defunding police to leniency in sentencing.
It was during the opening and closing comments, however, that candidates James Chafin, Deborah Gonzalez and Brian Patterson differentiated themselves most clearly and gave a sense of their approaches to the work of the District Attorney Office.
The Northeast Health District added four deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 106 new confirmed cases of the disease with the release of the Daily Status Report on Wednesday, and the seven-day rolling average of both deaths and cases increased.
The deaths were of a 67-year-old male in Jackson County without a known chronic condition, a 76-year-old male in Madison County with a chronic condition, a 55-year-old female with a chronic condition in Walton County, and an 82-year-old male without a chronic condition in Walton County.
The Northeast Health District added 83 new COVID-19 cases with the release of the Daily Status Report on Tuesday and no deaths from the disease, and the seven-day rolling average of both added cases and deaths declined.
The 83 new positive tests included five in Oconee County and 16 in Clarke County, and each of the other eight counties in the Northeast Health District added at least one case.
The Northeast Health District added two deaths from COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health and the Department of Community Health reports on Monday and 36 new confirmed cases of the disease
The death listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report was of a 56-year-old male in Jackson County with a chronic condition. It was 35th death in Jackson County and the 262nd death in the Northeast Health District listed in that report.
Oconee County, as well as Clarke County, got amazingly good news with the release of the sales tax distributions for August.
With the addition of revenue from an audit that spanned several years of an unidentified company, sales tax distributions for August increased by two-thirds over a year ago for Oconee County and for Oconee County Schools.
With the addition of 39 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths from the disease in the Northeast Health District, the seven-day rolling averages of both measures increased slightly on Sunday.
The 39 cases listed in the Sunday Department of Public Health Daily Status Report pushed the seven-day rolling average from 79.1 on Saturday to 80.7 on Sunday.
Oconee County did not add any new cases on Sunday, but Clarke County added 14.
The Northeast Health District added 88 confirmed COVID-19 cases with the Saturday release of the Department of Public Health’s Daily Status Report, producing a seven-day rolling average of added cases that has been relatively unchanged for the last week.
Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District added at least one case, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases was 79.1 on Saturday. That figure had been 79.0 on Friday.
The Oconee Chamber of Commerce and the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce on Friday were working out details for the virtual candidate forum being organized for 6 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 14 for races on the Nov. 3 ballot overlapping Oconee and Clarke counties.
Courtney Bernardi, president of the Oconee Chamber of Commerce, said Friday she was waiting on confirmation from three of the 11 invited candidates and well as from the invited moderator.
The Department of Public Health listed 91 new COVID-19 cases and one death from the disease in the Northeast Health District in the Daily Status Report on Friday, and the seven-day rolling averages of cases and deaths in the District remained largely unchanged.
The death was of a male in Walton County with a chronic condition aged 90 plus, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the Status Report was 1.7, the same as on Thursday.
Laura Ormes joined two of the three other candidates for Board of Education Posts 4 and 5 in calling for a mask mandate at Oconee County Schools.
Only incumbent Post 4 Board Member Tim Burgess, Ormes’ opponent in the Nov. 3 election, opposes the mandate. Mask wearing is encouraged but not required under current school policy.
Ormes also said Board members should respond to citizens who write to them, something Joan Parker also said, but neither Burgess nor Michael Ransom did.
With the addition of two deaths from COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Thursday, the Northeast Health District saw continued increases in the seven-day rolling average of added deaths.
The two deaths were in Elbert County. One was a 72-year-old male without a known chronic condition, and the other was of an 88-year-old female with a chronic condition.
With the addition of one new COVID-19 death and 96 new cases of the disease in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Wednesday, the seven-day rolling averages of deaths and cases in the Northeast Health District edged up just lightly.
The death was of a male in Jackson County with a chronic condition listed as 90 plus in age. Jackson County now has 33 deaths, and the Northeast Health District has 255.
The Department of Public Health reported one new COVID-19 death in the 10-county Northeast Health District on Tuesday and 110 new confirmed cases of the disease.
The new death was of a 65-year-old male in Morgan County without a chronic condition. It is only the third death from COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began.
Morgan County has the lowest ratio of deaths per population of the District, just below Elbert County, which also has three deaths from the virus.
At of the end of the day on Monday, Oconee County’s Elections and Registration Office had received and processed 6,064 absentee ballot requests from the county’s 31,278 registered voters.
The Secretary of State Office has hired a vender who is mailing out the ballots, and that process is underway.
In fact, by the end of the day on Monday, 1,076 of the county’s voters already had returned a ballot–completing their voting process for the Nov. 3 election.
The Northeast Health District added two COVID-19 deaths in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Monday and two additional deaths in the Department of Community Health Long-Term Care Facility Report.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report listed the death of an 85-year-old male with a chronic condition in Greene County and of a female without a chronic condition aged 90 plus in Walton County.
State Rep. Houston Gaines’ comments to Oconee County Republicans were unvarnished.
“We both have a significant challenge coming up in November,” Gaines said, speaking for himself and Rep. Marcus Wiedower. “It’s going to be a real fight.”
Gaines was speaking at the end of July when the Oconee County Republican Party opened its campaign headquarters at 1050 Barber Creek Drive, off Mars Hill Road.
The Northeast Health District added 28 cases of COVID on Sunday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, the fewest cases it has added since June 28, also a Sunday.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped to 79.7 in the 10-county Northeast Health District, the lowest rolling average since July 5. The seven-day rolling average had been 83.3 on Saturday.
Clarke County recorded its 44th death from COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Saturday, the second death in the county from the disease listed in the Report in as many days.
The Daily Status Report listed two deaths from COVID-19 in Barrow County and one in Jackson County, and the four additional deaths brought the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the 10-county Northeast Health District up slightly to 1.1 from 1.0 on Friday.
All five candidates competing for positions on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on the Nov. 3 ballot have agreed to participate in a virtual candidates forum over Zoom from 8 to 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 12.
The candidates will introduce themselves and then respond to questions submitted in advance and during the session itself.
Clarke County recorded its 43rd death due to COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday, ending an otherwise positive week of declining cases of the disease and deaths attributed to it in the Northeast Health District.
The Clarke County death was of a 53-year-old male without a known chronic condition.
With the single death in the 10-county Northeast Health District, the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped to 1.0 on Friday from 1.9 on Thursday in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The Northeast Health District added 113 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped for the 10th day in a row.
Eight of the 10 counties in the District added cases, with Morgan and Greene counties the exception.
Oconee County added five cases and Clarke County added 36 cases, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases in each county dropped–to 4.6 in Oconee County and 28.6 in Clarke County. Those averages had been 5.6 and 31.4 respectively on Wednesday.
The Northeast Health District added 95 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Wednesday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped below 100 for the first time since July 12.
The rolling average had been 103.6 on Tuesday and was 94.3 with the release of the Daily Status Report on Wednesday.
The Department of Public Health reported two deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District in Tuesday’s Daily Status Report, and the Department of Community Health reported six deaths in the District in its Long-Term Care Facility Report, also released on Tuesday.
One of the Daily Status Report deaths was in Clarke County, and three of the Long-Term Care Facility Report deaths were at University Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Athens-Clarke County.
The Northeast Health District added two COVID-19 Deaths On Monday, one in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report and the other in the Department of Community Affairs Long-Term Care Facility Report.
The Northeast Health District added only 53 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, traditionally a slow day of reporting, but the number of added cases was lower than a week ago, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped for the sixth day in a row.
Oconee County added two cases with the release of the Daily Status Report, and Clarke County added 19. Even with the small number of cases, all of the remaining eight counties in the 10-county district except Greene and Elbert added cases.
Incumbent Oconee County Board of Education Post 4 Member Tim Burgess had some advice for the three other candidates seeking a spot on the Board at Thursday’s night’s virtual candidate forum.
The Board is a governing body, Burgess said, and it hires a superintendent to run the schools.
Most of the issues that come before the Board are operational issues, Burgess said, and the Board should not get involved in those issues until after school administrators have tried to resolve them.
For the second day in a row, Oconee County added a death attributed to COVID-19 with the release of the Daily Status Report by the Department of Public Health on Saturday.
Barrow County added two deaths, bringing the total number of new deaths added in the 10-county Northeast Health District to three and the total since March to 242.
The Department of Public Health on Friday listed seven deaths attributed to COVID-19 in its Daily Status Report for the 10-county Northeast Health District, including one in Oconee County and three in Clarke County.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths from the corona virus in the Northeast Health District increased to 2.4 on Friday from 1.7 on Saturday.
Clarke County recorded another death attributed to COVID-19 in the Thursday Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health, as did Jackson County, bringing the total number of deaths from the disease in the Northeast Health District to 232, up from 220 a week ago.
The District had added two deaths on Thursday of last week, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths remained unchanged from Wednesday at 1.7.
State Representative Marcus Wiedower filed a revised campaign contribution report on Tuesday after a member of the Athens-Clarke County Democratic Committee filed a complaint accusing Wiedower of illegally accepting campaign contributions during this year’s legislative session.
In filing the revised Campaign Contribution Disclosure Report for Jan. 31, 2020, Wiedower changed the dates on 21 contributions that previously had been listed as having been received on Jan. 17, 22, and 23.
The seven-day rolling average of added COVID-19 cases and deaths declined in the Northeast Health District on Wednesday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The 10-county District added no deaths attributed to the virus, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths declined from 2.1 on Tuesday to 1.7 on Wednesday.
State Sen. Bill Cowsert called on Oconee County Republicans to turn out to vote in the Nov. 3 election to make sure that Houston Gaines and Marcus Wiedower, who represent the county in the Georgia House, are sent back to Atlanta to protect the party during redistricting.
Cowsert, who, like Gaines and Wiedower, has Democratic opposition on the November ballot, was dismissive of the possibility that he might be defeated, but he said the districts Gaines and Wiedower represent are “close, very close” and “if we don’t get out and vote for them” they can be defeated.
Barrow, Clarke, Jackson, and Walton counties all added a death from COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Tuesday, and the Northeast Health District, of which the four counties are a part, added 215 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The four deaths in the 10-county district were 8.3 percent of the 48 deaths added across the 159 counties in Georgia in the Daily Status Report on Tuesday, and the 215 cases were 13.7 percent of the 1,571 cases added statewide.
The Northeast Health District added 72 COVID-19 cases with the release of the Daily Status Report on Monday, more than the 59 added on Monday of last week, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased slightly from 169.0 on Sunday to 170.9.
The Daily Status Report, issued by the Department of Public Health, listed no new COVID-19 deaths in the 10-county Northeast Health District on Monday, and the seven-day rolling average remained unchanged at 1.9. The District had no deaths listed in the Daily Status Report last Monday.
The Northeast Health District added 112 COVID-19 cases on Sunday and three COVID-19 deaths, two of them in Oconee County. The seven-day rolling averages of cases and deaths increased slightly from Saturday.
The two Oconee County deaths were of a 65-year-old female without a chronic condition and of an 89-year-old male, also without a chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 169 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday and a single death from the disease, resulting in a decline in the seven-day rolling averages of added cases and deaths for the second day in a row.
The death listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report was of a female from Walton County without a known chronic condition. Her age was listed as 90 plus.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday listed 190 new Northeast Health District COVID-19 cases and two COVID-19 deaths–one in Oconee County–resulting in small drops in the seven-day rolling averages of cases and deaths.
The death in Oconee County was of a 63-year-old female without a chronic condition, while the second death was of an 80-year-male without a known chronic condition in Walton County.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 161 COVID-19 cases and two deaths attributed to the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Thursday.
Every county in the District added cases on Thursday, with Oconee County adding five and Clarke County adding 96. The District contributed 8.3 percent of the cases in the state, down from 9.9 percent on Wednesday. The District is 5.0 percent of the state’s population.
Fran Leathers, chair of the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration, told fellow Board members at their meeting last week that she had found a new voting home for Precinct 11, which formerly voted at Athens Academy.
On Nov. 3, the 2,758 registered voters in that precinct who opt to cast a ballot in person on election day will do so at Nations Church, 8780 Macon Highway, just south of the entrance to Athens Ridge student apartment complex.
The Northeast Health District added 207 new COVID-19 cases and three deaths from the disease in the Department of Public Health’s Daily Status Report on Wednesday.
The new cases pushed the seven-day rolling average of added cases up to 219.4 on Wednesday from 216.9 on Tuesday. The seven-day rolling average of added deaths remained unchanged at 2.0 deaths per day.
Jonathan Wallace said he first decided to run to represent Georgia House District 119 in the special election back in 2017 largely because of his desire to provide support for public education in the state.
Once he was elected and served in the General Assembly in 2018, Wallace said, the range of issues that concerned him broadened, with the COVID-19 pandemic now taking center stage.
The seven-day rolling averages of added COVID-19 cases and deaths in the Northeast Health District dropped on Tuesday, a day on which reporting to the Department of Public Health likely was suppressed by the holiday.
The Department of Public Health did add 285 cases in the 10-county Northeast Health District, with 206 of those from Clarke County. Oconee County added 13 case.
***District Has Nearly 10 Percent Of Cases, Five Percent Of Population***
The Northeast Health District added only 59 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Monday, but it contributed just less than 10 percent of the cases added in the entire state.
Mondays usually are light reporting days to the Daily Status Report, and the state added only 612 cases on Monday, Labor Day. This was the first time the state had added fewer than 1,000 COVID-19 cases since June 22.
The seven-day rolling averages of COVID-19 cases and deaths continued to increase in the Northeast Health District with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Sunday.
Sunday traditionally is a day of light reporting, and the 10-county District added only 108 cases, but that figure was up from the 102 reported on Sunday a week ago, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 227.3 from 226.4 on Saturday.
Clarke County reported 277 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and two deaths from the disease on Saturday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The 277 new COVID-19 cases top the previous record of 173 recorded by the county on Thursday. Clarke County has recorded 1,346 new COVID-19 cases since the University of Georgia began the Fall semester on Aug. 20, or just more than a third of the 3,687 cases recorded in the county.
The four candidates seeking election to the Oconee County Board of Education in November have agreed to meet in a virtual candidate forum via Zoom from 8 to 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 17.
The forum is open to the public, but those wishing to participate are being asked to register in advance.
Citizens also are being given a chance to submit questions to be posed to the four candidates.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 201 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and four deaths from the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Friday.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases increased from 184.1 on Thursday to 192.3 on Friday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased from 2.6 on Thursday to 2.9 on Friday.
Led by the addition of COVID-19 cases in Clarke County, the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the 10-county Northeast Health District increased to 184.1 on Thursday from 165.4 the day before.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report listed 173 new cases of the disease in Clarke County, the largest single-day increase ever recorded in the county. The earlier record had been 154 new cases on Tuesday.
The Northeast Health District added 189 confirmed COVID-19 cases and three deaths attributed to the disease with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Wednesday.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases in the 10-county district jumped from 159.6 on Tuesday to 165.4 on Wednesday, the highest point that average has ever reached. The previous high had been 160.4 a month ago, on Aug. 2.
The Department of Public Health, in Tuesday’s Daily Status Report, listed 10 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District, a record number for a single day, with four of those deaths in Athens-Clarke County.
The Northeast Health District also added 294 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, also a record, with 154 of those in Clarke County.
The Northeast Health District added 123 new COVID-19 cases in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Monday, with Clarke County accounting for the vast majority.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 148.9 on Monday from 137.1 on Sunday. The 10-county Northeast Health District is bucking the statewide trend of decreasing cases.
County Administrator Justin Kirouac told Oconee County commissioners at their meeting last week that he expects to have a contract to bring before them next month to move forward on broadband expansion in the county.
The county will partner with Smart City Capital of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to create a new company, Kirouac said, that will build out 540 miles of fiber throughout the county, including an 80 mile fiber ring.
Led by Clarke County, the Northeast Health District added 102 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, pushing the seven-day rolling average of added cases to 137.1, up from 129.0 on Saturday.
The Department of Public Health listed no new deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District on Sunday, the first day since Aug. 13 that no deaths have been added with release of its Daily Status Report.
The Department of Public Health listed another COVID-19 Death in the Northeast Health District with release of the Daily Status Report on Saturday. The Report also listed 146 new confirmed cases of the disease.
It was the 16th day in a row the Daily Status Report included a death in the 10-county Northeast Health District, bringing the total number of deaths from the disease in the District to 191.
The state Department of Public Health Listed Two Deaths Attributed to COVID-19 in the 10-county Northeast Health District on Friday, and the Georgia Department of Community Health listed another in a nursing home in the District. The nursing home death was in Athens-Clarke County.
The two deaths listed in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report were of a 58-year-old male with a chronic condition in Madison County and of a 70-year-old female without a known chronic condition in Walton County.
The Northeast Health District added five deaths attributed to COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health’s Daily Status Report on Thursday. It was the 14th consecutive day in which the Daily Status Report listed a death from the disease in the District.
Three of the five added deaths were in Jackson County: a 48-year-old male with a chronic condition, a 76-year-old female without a known chronic condition, and a male aged 90 plus with a chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added two COVID-19 deaths with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Wednesday, the 13th day in a row the District has added deaths from the novel coronavirus.
Both of the deaths were in Barrow County–of a 64-year female and of a female aged 90 plus, both with chronic conditions.
The Oconee County Board of Education has sent a strongly worded letter to the County Commission complaining about the changes made to the staff and bus entrance to its Malcom Bridge Road school complex and rejecting all proposed changes for the parent entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School.
The three-page letter, dated Aug. 21 but released to the public on Tuesday by Oconee County School Superintendent Jason Branch, is signed by all five members of the Board.
The Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported five deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District and 219 confirmed cases of the disease, pushing up the seven-day rolling averages of added deaths and of added cases.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths, two of which were in Clarke County, increased from 2.4 on Monday to 3.0 on Tuesday, its highest point ever.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report listed a death from COVID-19 in Jackson County on Monday, the 11th day in a row that a death from the disease has been recorded for the 10-county Northeast Health District.
The Jackson County death, of a 62-year-old female with a chronic condition, was the third in three days for the county.
When the Oconee County Planning Commission meets in September, it will have to start strategizing for selection of a new chair, as the Oconee County Board of Commissioners has turned down current Chair Maria Caudill’s request for reappointment to the Planning body.
At its regular meeting on Aug. 4, the Board of Commissioners selected incumbent Planning Commission Member Chuck Hunt for reappointment, but selected Nathan Byrd, a minister, over Caudill.
