Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Northeast Health District Adds 12 COVID-19 Deaths And 72 New Cases Of Disease

*** Rolling Averages Confirmed Cases Unchanged, Cases Down***

The Northeast Health District added eight confirmed deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Wednesday Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.

The Department of Community Health also reported four deaths in the District in its Wednesday Long-Term Care Facility Report.

The District added 72 new cases of COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Report.

With the addition of the eight confirmed deaths in the Daily Status Report, the seven-day rolling average of added confirmed deaths from the disease remained unchanged from Tuesday.

Seven of the 10 counties in the District added confirmed deaths. Only Oconee, Morgan and Oglethorpe counties did not.

Clarke County added two confirmed deaths: a 53-year-old female with a chronic condition and a 78-year-old female without a chronic condition. The deaths bring to 122 the number in the county attributed to COVID-19.

Other confirmed COVID-19 deaths were of a 60-year-old male with a chronic condition in Barrow County, a 90-plus-year-old female in Elbert County without a chronic condition, and a 63-year-old male in Greene County without a chronic condition.

Deaths listed also included a 58-year-old female in Jackson County without a chronic condition, a 79-year-old male in Madison County without a chronic condition, and a 74-year-old female in Walton County without a chronic condition.

The Daily Status Report had listed eight confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Daily Status Report on Wednesday a week ago, so the seven-day rolling average of added deaths on Wednesday remained unchanged at 2.3.

The four deaths listed in the Department of Community Health Long-Term Care Facility Report were at Social Circle Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Walton County, bringing to six the number of resident deaths reported by that facility.

The Department of Community Health Report does not list characteristics of the deceased. The deaths are treated by the Department of Public Health as unconfirmed.

Cases, Hospital Report, Vaccinations

The addition of the 72 new COVID-19 cases in the Wednesday Department of Public Health Report resulted in a drop in the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the Northeast Health District to 80.7 from 88.0 on Tuesday.

Oconee County added six cases, and Clarke County added 15. The seven-day rolling average of added cases in Oconee County dropped to 10.4 from 11.6 on Tuesday, and the rolling average in Clarke County dropped to 12.1 from 12.7 on Tuesday.

Oconee County High School Principal Kevin Yancey sent an email message to parents of students in the school at 4:58 p.m. on Wednesday informing them that “an individual” in the school had tested positive for COVID-19.

North Oconee High School Principal Philip Brown sent an email message to parents of students in his school at 7:01 p.m. reporting “an individual” in that school that had tested positive for COVID-19.

Yancey had informed parents of positive tests at Oconee County High School on both Monday and Tuesday, and Brown had informed his parents of a positive test on Sunday.

Since the Friday Weekly Status Report, Oconee County School principals have reported at least six positive tests, with Malcom Bridge Middle School also reporting a positive test. This count is based solely on email messages forwarded to me by parents in those schools.

The University of Georgia, in its Wednesday COVID-19 Health and Exposure Update, reported 22 local positive tests for the disease in the week from March 15 to March 21, and a total of 32 system-wide. Those numbers were down from 23 and 33 a week earlier.

The University also reported a positivity rate of 0.8 for walk-in tests at Legion Field, the same (with rounding) as a week earlier, but the number of individuals without symptoms who opted for the test dropped to 1,143 from 1,565 a week earlier.

The Department of Community Health on Wednesday reported 20 cases of COVID-19 among residents of Social Circle Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and 17 staff cases at the facility.

The facility has only 55 residents and has reported a total of 43 resident cases and 30 staff cases with the cases added on Wednesday.

The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Wednesday that the number of COVID-19 patients at area hospitals (46) increased by two from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (60) decreased by four from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (35) decreased by one from the day before.

The Department of Public Health did not update its web dashboard to report administration of new vaccines again on Wednesday. The data have not been updated since Sunday.

State Data

The Daily Status Report added 75 confirmed COVID-19 deaths across the state on Wednesday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased slightly to 38.1 from 37.4 on Tuesday.

Twenty-two of the 75 added deaths were in the last 14 days, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dated by occurrence increased slightly on Wednesday from Tuesday.

The Department of Public Health eliminated five death it had previously attributed to COVID-19 from its archive of deaths from the disease.

The Department of Public Health added two “probable” deaths from COVID-19 in Wednesday’s Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added “probable” deaths dropped slightly to 5.9 from 6.0 on Tuesday.

Across the state, the Department of Public Health added 1,371 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases decreased to 1,672.6 from 1,785.9 on Tuesday.

The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Wednesday that the number of COVID-19 patients (1,213) at the state’s hospitals increased from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (2,390) decreased from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (1,007) decreased from the day before.

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 Wednesday.

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