Saturday, April 04, 2020

Oconee And Clarke Counties Each Add Three New Confirmed Cases Of COVID-19 In Saturday Daily Status Report

***Statewide New Testing Drops***

Oconee and Clarke counties each added three confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the 24-hour-period ending at noon on Saturday, according to the Georgia Department of Health Daily Status Report.

The 10-county Northeast Health District of the Department of Health that includes Oconee and Clarke counties added 13 confirmed cases in the 24-hour-period, and Georgia as a whole added 329 cases.

The number of deaths in the 10-county Northeast District remained the same at 12, while the state of Georgia added 17 deaths. The cumulative number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 increased in the state by 81.

Across the state, the number of new confirmed cases, of deaths, and of new hospitalizations has decreased in each of the last three days over the day before.

But so has the number of new tests recorded by the Georgia Department of Health.

The Department of Health reported an increase of 1,029 tests in the 24-hour-period ending at noon on Saturday, compared with 2,308 new tests in the 24-hour-period ending at noon on Friday.

When tests declined heading into this week, so did the number of confirmed cases, deaths and hospitalizations

The numbers of cases, deaths and hospitalizations increased dramatically on Tuesday when the number of recorded tests increased.

UPDATE: The Daily Status Report for 7 p.m. on Saturday added two new confirmed COVID-19 cases for Oconee, Clarke, Walton, and Jackson counties and three new cases for Barrow County.

At the state level, the 7 p.m. report added 223 confirmed cases, seven deaths, and 27 hospitalizations.

The box in Chart 1 has been updated to reflect the data from the 7 p.m. report.

Three Charts

The three charts below summarize the trends based on the new data provided by the Department of Health at noon on Saturday.

The first chart shows the trends in number of cases for the state and for Clarke, Oconee and Barrow counties from the date on which the first case was recorded in the 10-county Northeast Health District.

The box above the chart includes the data for each of the 10 counties based on the most recent report.

Chart 1 7 p.m.  (Click To Enlarge)

The second chart shows the state-wide trends in cumulative number of confirmed cases and deaths going back to March 2, when the first case was confirmed in Atlanta.

Data for number of tests and number of hospitalizations have been available for a shorter period of time. Trends for those measures are shown in this chart as well.

The decrease in the growth of confirmed cases, deaths, tests and hospitalization can be seen in this chart.

Chart 2 (Click To Enlarge)

The data in Chart 2 are cumulative.

Chart 3 shows, in the large subchart, the number of new confirmed cases added each day across time, and, in the two smaller charts, the number of new deaths each day and the number of new tests each day.

The similarity of the charts is striking.

As testing drops, so do the number of confirmed cases and deaths. The same is true for hospitalizations, which are not plotted here because of the recent addition of those data to the Daily Status Report and the resulting limited number of data points.

The Daily Status Report does not break out testing or hospitalizations by county, as it does for confirmed cases and deaths.

Chart 3 (Click To Enlarge)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I thank you for collating the data and projecting the cases per day. My concern with the statistics reflected here as well as the general approach most states have taken is that they are only showing stats for new cases instead of active cases. As we get deeper into the quarantine and mitigation efforts (greater than 14 days post first case), active case tracking is more relevant as it shows how many cases are really circulating versus that have just occurred. This kind of analysis would be necessary to support whether the curve is flattening here in Oconee, or anywhere else in the state.

Lee Becker said...

Dear Unknown,

I agree with your statement. Unfortunately, I can only report what the Daily Status Report presents.

Lee

Lee Becker said...

All,

This comment by Unknown is very helpful.

I asked all who post to sign their names if their google profile does not include a name.

Thanks.

Lee

mike streetman said...

Lee, I wish they would publish how many people have gotten over the virus and not just deaths or new cases.

Mike Horsman said...

Hi Lee, Thanks again for all your awesome hard work. You are a great American and I’ll fight anyone who says different :-)
I am in complete agreement with “unknown” about charting and reporting “active” cases instead of just “reported” cases and his/her reasons for why. I think reasonable people should ask themselves WHY an active case chart never appears in any media reports. Could it be because it would look more hopeful and lessen the hysteria, thus reducing the number of clicks these websites are getting? Just my two cents.
Lastly, you deserve an award for possibly being the last great journalist left on our planet. Thanks again!
Mike Horsman

Lee Becker said...

Mike and Mike,

I appreciate the comments. I don't know how the decision is made on releasing data. I agree that the more information released the better off we would be. I do not think the present strategy of simply releasing the statistics of confirmed cases, death, hospitalizations and tests is sufficient. All of these make sense only in context. I have been tracking these data myself after I was told that the Department of Health was only going to release the daily statistics. I would be glad to track anything else that is released. I have no idea what they would show, but I would like to know.

Lee