Thursday, March 18, 2021

Department Of Public Health Adds Four COVID-19 Deaths In Northeast Health District And 134 New Cases Of Disease

***One Of Deaths In Oconee County***

The Northeast Health District added four confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 134 new cases of the disease with the Thursday release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.

One of the deaths–of a 73-year-old male without a chronic condition–was in Oconee County, the 60th in the county from COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The Daily Status Report also eliminated two deaths in Clarke County previously attributed to the disease, producing a net increase of two deaths and reducing the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the Northeast Health District to 2.0 from 2.4 on Wednesday.

The District had added five deaths on Thursday of last week, so the seven-day rolling average of added deaths would have dropped to 2.3 if the two Clarke County deaths had not be subtracted.

The other three added deaths were of an 84-year-old male with a chronic condition in Barrow County, a 64-year-old female in Jackson County without a chronic condition, and a 90-plus-year-old female in Morgan County without a chronic condition.

The Oconee County death occurred on March 10. The death was not in one of the county’s long-term care facilities, as no deaths in those facilities have been recorded since the end of January.

Removed from the Clarke County list were the death of a 63-year-old female and of an 84-year-old male, both with chronic conditions. The total number of confirmed deaths in Clarke County attributed to COVID-19 is now 119.

Cases, Hospital Report, Vaccines

With the addition of the 134 new cases of COVID-19, the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped to 55.4 from 60.4 on Wednesday. The District had added 97 cases on Thursday of last week.

Oconee County added 18 cases, and Clarke County added 17. The seven-day rolling average of added cases in Oconee County increased to 10.3 from 8.7 on Wednesday. The rolling average in Clarke County fell to 12.7 from 14.0 on Wednesday.

Principals of Malcom Bridge Middle School and of North Oconee High School sent email messages to parents of students in those two schools on Thursday informing them that “two individuals” in each of the schools had tested positive for COVID-19.

Principal Michael Eddy of Malcom Bridge Middle School now has reported four positive tests since release of the Weekly Status Report by Oconee County Schools last Friday, while Principal Philip Brown at North Oconee High School has reported seven positive tests at his school since that time.

The Department of Community Health, in its Thursday Long-Term Care Facility Report, did not list any new COVID-19 cases or deaths at the long-term care facilities in the Northeast Health District.

The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Thursday that the number of COVID-19 patients at area hospitals (53) increased by one from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (61) was unchanged from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (38) also was unchanged from the day before.

The Northeast Health District added 5,644 new vaccinations on Thursday, up from 3,964 reported on Wednesday. The Wednesday numbers were for two days of vaccinations as the Department of Public Health did not release data on Tuesday.

The ratio of number of vaccinations administered per person in the District is 0.20. That compares with a ratio of 0.27 in the state.

State Data

The Daily Status Report added 57 confirmed COVID-19 deaths across the state on Thursday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths decreased to 40.0 from 44.1 on Tuesday.

Twenty-one of the added death occurred in the last 14 days, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths listed by day of occurrence decreased slightly on Thursday.

The Department of Public Health eliminated one death previously attributed to COVID-19.

As noted above, the Department of Public Health eliminated two deaths from the Clarke County list of confirmed COVID-19 deaths, meaning that at least one of those deaths must have been transferred to another county.

The death that was eliminated occurred on March 14, however, and Clarke County has not recorded any deaths since the 14th.

For that reason, both of the two Clarke County deaths removed must have been moved to another county. One of them likely was moved to Barrow County, as the characteristics of the moved case and new case match.

The Department of Public Health added five “probable” deaths from COVID-19 in Thursday’s Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added “probable” deaths increased to 4.9 from 4.6 on Wednesday.

Across the state, the Department of Public Health added 2,388 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 1,638.0 from 1,565.0 on Wednesday.

The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Thursday that the number of COVID-19 patients (1,271) at the state’s hospitals decreased from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (2,382) decreased from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (1,092) decreased from the day before.

The Department of Public Health reported on Thursday administration of 109,867 additional doses of the vaccine, the largest single-day figure since vaccinations began at the first of the year.

The Department of Public Health had reported 105,572 additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, but that was a two-day figure.

The Department of Public Health did not report any new allocation of doses of the vaccine to the state on Thursday but did report shipment of an additional 4,680 doses from Pfizer.

As of Thursday, 96.4 percent of the allocated doses had been shipped, and 80.1 percent of the doses shipped to the state had been administered.

Charts

The charts below show the seven-day rolling average of the addition of COVID-19 molecular and antigen cases combined for the Northeast Health District and for the state of Georgia since Nov. 3, when the state first began reporting antigen test results.

The data in the charts come from the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report and have been updated for the 2:50 p.m. Report on Thursday.

Click To Enlarge

 

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