Thursday, April 02, 2020

Oconee County Added Another Confirmed Case of COVID-19 in Last 24 Hours, Clarke Added Three

***Georgia Added 710 New Cases***

Oconee County added another confirmed COVID-19 case in the 24 hours ending at noon today, while Clarke County added three, Walton and Jackson counties each added two, and Madison County added one.

The state of Georgia added 710 new cases of confirmed COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the third highest increase on a day-to-day basis since the first case was reported on March 2.

The next two highest days were Wednesday, when 821 new cases were added, and Tuesday, when 1,008 new cases were added.

Clarke County added two new deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to seven. The total number of deaths in the nine counties that include and border on Clarke and Oconee counties is 10.

Oconee County, to date, has no recorded death attributable to COVID-19.

The number of deaths in the state attributable to the coronavirus increased by 24 in the 24 hours ending at noon today to 163.

A study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has projected that the number of deaths per day in Georgia will continue to increase until April 23 before leveling off and then declining.

The projected number of deaths in the state by Aug. 4 is 2,916.

UPDATE: Oconee, Clarke, Walton and Madison counties each added one additional confirmed case of COVID-19 in the 7 p.m. Daily Status Report. The state added 96 cases.

Oglethorpe County, which had only one confirmed COVID-19 case, recorded the death of an 83-year-old male without known underlying conditions. No other deaths attributed to the disease were recorded in the region, but the state reported an increase of 13 deaths since the noon report.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, based on the most recent data, revised its projected death figure attributable to COVID-19 for Georgia to 3,232 by Aug. 4 and pushed back the date at which the curve in deaths will begin to flatten to April 25.

The box in Chart 1 below has been updated based on the 7 p.m. report.

Testing Increases Less Than Day Before

The first chart below shows the number of cases in the area based on the noon Daily Status Report of the Georgia Department of Health.

The total number of cases in the nine counties I have been tracking is 132. All but Madison County has a border with Oconee County. Madison County completes the border around Clarke County.

Clarke County ranks 15th in the state in terms of number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

I will update Chart 1 later today to include data from the 7 p.m. Daily Status Report in the box in Chart 1.

Chart 1 (Click To Enlarge)

The second chart is made up of four smaller charts and shows the long-term trend and continued growth in number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

The chart also shows that the lag in testing from a few days ago has been corrected, but the number of tests reported in today’s Daily Status Report grew by 2,631 versus an increase of 4,145 a day earlier.

Chart 2 (Click To Enlarge)

The third chart below shows in the main chart (red line) the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 each day going back to March 2, when the first case in the state was reported in Atlanta. (The top, left chart in Chart 2 is cumulative.)

The smaller chart inserted inside Chart 3 shows the growth in deaths in the state attributable to COVID-19, with the first recorded case on March 12. (The top, right chart in Chart 2 is cumulative for deaths.)

Chart 3 (Click To Enlarge)

University of Washington Study

The final chart, Chart 4,is taken from the report of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington that was released earlier this week and has received considerable media attention.

At the left-hand side of the curve, which is for Georgia, it is possible to see the same data on deaths by date as is shown in Chart 3.

The remainder of the curve is projected, with a band around the dominant line. (The projections are updated daily.)

The projected line peaks on April 23 with 86 deaths recorded and begins to decline on April 26 with 85. The chart is being updated daily.

The IHME report says that the state will need 9,172 hospital beds, 1,381 Intensive Care Unit Beds, and 1,105 ventilators to care for the projected number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization but has only 8,322 hospital beds and only 589 ICU beds.

The projections leave a shortage of hospital beds of 850 and of ICU beds of 792 in the state.

The IHME report does not list the number of ventilators available.

I have asked the Northeast Health District of the Georgia Department of Health, for data on hospital beds, ICU beds, and ventilators in the District but have not received a response.

The Northeast Health District includes the nine counties tracked in Chart 1 plus Elbert County. Elbert County at present does not have any COVID-19 confirmed cases.

Chart 4 IHME Projection (Click To Enlarge)

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