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 Department of Community Health, in its Long-Term Care Facility Report on Friday, listed one new COVID-19 death–at PruittHealth Grandview in Athens-Clarke County. It was the second death in as many days listed at a nursing home in Athens-Clarke County.
Neither of these deaths has appeared in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, which creates and distributes the Long-Term Care Facility Report based on data collected by the Department of Community Health.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the Daily Status Report was 2.4 on Friday, down from 2.7 on Thursday. The District had four deaths from COVID-19 in the Daily Status Report on Friday of last week.
The Northeast Health District had 144 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Friday Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases was 129.1, down from 130.1 on Thursday.
Every county in the 10-county District added at least four cases, with Oconee County adding six cases and Clarke County adding 46.
Oconee County added 51 cases in the last week, and Clarke County has added 321.
The Department of Community Health in its Friday report listed one new COVID-19 Positive Staff member at Plaza Personal Care Center at Talmage Terrence in Athens-Clarke County, two new COVID-19 Positive Staff at a nursing home in Elbert County, and three new COVID-19 Positive Residents at a nursing home in Walton County.
Oconee County Schools reported on Friday that the schools had 13 Active COVID-19 Cases at the end of the second full week of classes on Friday, the same number as a week ago, and 117 Active Quarantines Due to Close Contact, up from 100 a week ago
Local School, Hospital Data
The Oconee County counts of Active Cases and Active Quarantines are not cumulative, reflecting instead the number of cases so classified at the end of the reporting period.
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The school system is not releasing information about the location of the Active Cases or of Active Quarantines.
On Aug. 12, Anisa Sullivan Jimenez, director of Communications from the school, wrote: “from this point forward, to align with DPH protocol, only diagnosed will be reported. Individuals can be diagnosed by a physician or by a test.” DPH is Department of Public Health.
“No identifying information about whether infected individuals are students, staff, or faculty will be reported. School-level details will also not be reported,” she wrote.
During the past week, parents have forwarded to me email messages they have received from the school system regarding COVID-19 cases at High Shoals Elementary (two different messages), Malcom Bridge Middle School, and Oconee County High School.
The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency on Friday reported that area hospitals had 111 COVID-19 patients, down from 118 on Thursday, 61 ICU Beds In Use, the same as the day before, and 28 ventilators in use, also unchanged from Thursday.
State Data
Across the state, the Department of Public Health reported 79 deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped to 69.1 from 71.6 on Thursday.
Fifty-eight of those deaths were in the last 14 days, and the rolling average of deaths by date of occurrence actually increased on Friday from Thursday.
The Department of Public Health reported that it eliminated one death previously recorded. It also dated one of the “new” deaths reported on Friday as occurring on June 22.
The state added 2,383 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped from 2,398.3 on Thursday to 2,311.7 on Friday.
The state reported adding 18,147 molecular tests on Friday, down from 19,936 on Thursday, and the seven-day rolling average of added molecular tests dropped to 23,840.3 from 24,571.7
Tests And Cases
The decline in tests and decline in reported COVID-19 cases is shown in Chart 4 below.
Going back to Aug. 11, both tests and cases have declined, and the percentage of tests that were positive has remained relatively stable.
In short, about 10 percent of the tests produce a positive result, and the decline in the positive results reflects the decline in tests.
The Department of Public Health offers no reason for the irregularity in the testing or the decline in testing in recent weeks.
The Department of Community Health reported on Friday that COVID-19 was present among residents and/or staff of 632 Long-Term Care Facilities across the state. The figure was 636 on Thursday.
Facilities are not supposed to remove themselves from the list once they have a COVID-19 case, but many do, and the Department of Community Health does not monitor this error.
State Hospital Data
The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency on Friday reported that hospitals across the state had 2,081 COVID-19 patients, down from 2,219 on Thursday, 2,496 ICU Beds In Use, up from 2,476 on Thursday, and 1,118 ventilators in use, down from 1,133 on Thursday.
The data are on the Georgia Geospatial Information Office web site, which states that the data reflect the situation at 12:00 a.m. for Friday, but I compared the figures on Friday morning and again at 3:25 p.m., and the numbers changed , though the designation of 12:00 a.m. did not.
This also explains discrepancies between the posted figures and those used in the separate Situation Report COVID-19 released by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency on its own.
I will use afternoon figures from the Georgia Geospatial Information Office web site as long as they are available.
Charts
All of the charts below are based on data from the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report and have been updated to include data from the release of that report at 2:50 p.m. on Friday.
Charts 1 and 2 include data from the 10-county Northeast Health District of the Department of Public Health, which includes Oconee and Clarke counties.
Charts 3 through 5 show data for the entire state of Georgia.
Click on any of the charts to enlarge it.
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2 comments:
Wouldn't it make sense that the decline in testing means that people aren't getting sick and needing a test??? Why would we need the public health department to tell us that...it seems like common sense???
Todd,
In the Town Hall presentation by Michael Burnett of Piedmont Athens Regional on Aug. 20, he said testing remained a problem. So there are two explanations. One is that fewer people are requesting tests because fewer people are sick. The other is that testing is still a problem. So the Department of Public Health could offer information to help differentiate between those two explanations.
Again, I ask those who respond to use a Google Address that contains a full, real name, or to sign the name at the end.
Thanks.
Lee
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