With the addition of four COVID-19 deaths and 72 new cases of the disease, the seven-day rolling averages of added deaths and cases increased on Saturday in the Northeast Health District with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The deaths were of an 83-year-old male in Barrow County with a chronic condition and of an 82-year-old female in Greene County, a 61-year-old female in Jackson County, and a 90-plus-year-old male in Walton County, all without chronic conditions.
The deaths bring to 866 the number in the District since the state began counting COVID-19 deaths in the beginning of February in 2020.
The Department of Public Health had added two deaths in the 10-county Northeast Health District a week ago, and the addition of the four deaths on Saturday resulted in an increase in the seven-day rolling average of added deaths to 4.1 from 3.9 on Friday.
The District also added two “probable” deaths, one in Elbert County and one in Morgan County, bringing to 81 the number in the District since February of last year.
The Daily Status Report does not include any information on the characteristics of the “probable” deaths.
Cases, Hospital Report, Vaccines
With the addition of the 72 new cases, the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the Northeast Health District increased to 76.1 from 74.0 on Friday.
Oconee County added six cases, and Clarke County added 13. The seven-day rolling average of added cases in Oconee County dropped slightly to 6.9 from 7.0 on Friday, while the seven-day rolling average of added cases in Clarke County increased to 13.1 from 12.4 on Friday.
Philip Brown, principal at North Oconee High School, sent an email to parents of students at the school at 7:30 p.m. on Friday informing them that “an individual” at the school had tested positive for COVID-19.
Because the school administration does not provide any details on cases in its weekly COVID-19 Status Report released at 4:01 on Friday, it isn’t possible to know if the case referenced by Brown had been included in the count of 17 Active Cases and 83 Active Quarantines.
Both numbers were down from the week before.
The Department of Community Health does not release a Long-Term Care Facility Report on the weekends.
The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Saturday that the number of COVID-19 patients at area hospitals (48) decreased by one from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (58) was the same as the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (32) also was unchanged from the day before.
The Vaccine Distribution Dashboard of the Department of Public Health remained down on Saturday. These data have not been reported since Sunday.
One Year Of Daily Reports
On March 27, 2020, I posted the first of what has become a daily report on COVID-19 in Oconee County and the counties surrounding it.
I had posted four reports before that report on March 27, starting on March 19, but I have not missed a daily update since March 27.
In that March 27, 2020, post, I reported 10 confirmed cases in Oconee County and no deaths. In Clarke County, the number of cases was 32, and there were no deaths.
In the state, according to the Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health used for that post, there were 201 cases and 64 deaths on that date.
The data used in this post for Saturday show 2,954 confirmed cases in Oconee County and 60 deaths.
In Clarke County, the number of cases on Saturday was 14,403, and the number of deaths was 127.
In the state, the number of cases on Saturday was 848,859, and the number of deaths was 16,487.
Some Reflections
I did not set out to do a daily update. It just evolved, and I’m looking forward to stopping.
At first, there was little information available, and most of my time was spent trying to decipher what was available. It was spotty, poorly documented, and sometimes contradictory.
Across time, a great deal of information of a higher quality has become available, and I spend four to six hours or more each day sorting through those data looking for trends and new insights.
That initial post a year ago focused on Oconee, Barrow and Clarke counties.
Soon I realized that there was something called the Northeast Health District, with Oconee and Clarke counties literally at the center, and I shifted my attention to the 10 counties that make up that District since health care cuts across county lines.
None of the reports issued by the state, however, sort the data based on those 10 counties, so I go through the reports each day and pull out the data for those 10 counties to produce my daily update.
The weakness of all of the reports is that they tell what happens each day and tell little–often nothing--about the trends. I have focused from the beginning on the trends, and each day I compare what is reported by the state and other agencies that day with what was reported the day before.
This is a tedious process.
My motivation for doing these reports is simple: I want to know what is happening for myself. No one else is focusing on Oconee and these other nine counties in the Northeast Health District.
I hope my sharing what I have learned has been of value to others as well.
State Data
The Daily Status Report added 71 confirmed COVID-19 deaths across the state on Saturday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased to 50.7 from 47.7 on Friday.
Seventeen of the added deaths occurred in the last 14 days, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dated by occurrence increased slightly on Saturday from Friday.
The Department of Public Health eliminated one death it had previously attributed to COVID-19 from its archive of deaths from the disease.
The Department of Public Health added seven “probable” deaths from COVID-19 in Saturday’s Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added “probable” deaths decreased to 7.7 from 9.0 on Friday.
Across the state, the Department of Public Health added 1,522 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases decreased to 1,593.1 from 1,642.0 on Friday.
The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Saturday that the number of COVID-19 patients (1,196) at the state’s hospitals decreased from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (2,370) decreased from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (1,040) decreased from the day before.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Saturday that 11.6 percent of the Georgia’s population is now fully vaccinated, and 15.1 percent of those 18 years old and older are fully vaccinated. The figures were unchanged from Friday.
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 Saturday.
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