The 10-county Northeast Health District added 371 new cases of COVID-19 in the last seven days ending on Friday, or an average of 53.0 cases per day, and 10 confirmed deaths attributed to the disease, or an average of 1.4 deaths per day.
In the week ending on Friday of last week, April 23, the District had added 413 cases, or an average of 59.0 cases per day, and eight confirmed deaths attributed to COVID-19, or an average of 1.1 deaths per day.
Jamie Boswell received a copy of the letter sent Maxie Price by a senior Georgia Department of Transportation official clearing the way for a full access commercial median break on the Oconee Connector before Price did.
Price had written to Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry on March 17 asking McMurry to confirm that a full access commercial median break would be included in the design of the new interchange at SR 316 and the Oconee Connector.
The Mayor and Town Council of Bishop bypassed the Oconee County planning staff and the county Planning Commission when it rezoned property for a Dollar General earlier this month.
“Dollar General was going to walk away,” Bishop Mayor Johnny Pritchett said in explaining that action.
The city has had an agreement with the county since 1991 calling for the county planning staff to administer its zoning laws and has had a seat on the county Planning Commission since 1982.
An Athens sales and marketing firm has registered a web site to promote the rezoning of 47 acres at the corner of Mars Hill Road and the Oconee Connector for a major shopping center that would include a Publix.
The web site contains information used by land planner Ken Beall in his presentation to the Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday night, including a concept plan for the project that is different from and at odds with the one submitted to the county for the rezone request.
Centerpiece of the web site is a video that has been shared on Facebook that calls the project “environmentally responsible.”
The Northeast Health District added 64 COVID-19 cases and two confirmed deaths from the disease with the release of Saturday’s Department of Public Health Daily Status Report. Both of the deaths were in Oconee County.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases and added confirmed deaths fell just slightly.
The two Oconee County deaths were of a 62-year-old male with a chronic condition and of a 74-year-old male without a chronic condition.
For the second day in a row, the seven-day rolling average of added COVID-19 cases rose in the Northeast Health District on Friday while the seven-day rolling average of added confirmed deaths from the disease declined.
The Department of Public Health listed two new confirmed deaths on the District in the Friday Daily Status Report, resulting in a drop in the rolling average to 1.1 deaths per day from 1.3 deaths per day on Thursday.
The deaths were of a 76-year-old female in Clarke County without a chronic condition and a 78-year-old male in Walton County, also without a chronic condition.
With the addition of 75 new cases of COVID-19 reported by the Department of Public Health on Thursday, the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased in the Northeast Health District.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report did not list any new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the 10-county Northeast Health District, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths fell to 1.3 deaths per day from 1.7 on Wednesday.
The Northeast Health District added three confirmed deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, and the seven-day-rolling average of added deaths increased. Two of the three added deaths were in Clarke County.
The District added 58 cases with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases declined to 52.9 added cases per day from 55.9 on Tuesday.
The Clarke County deaths were of 81-year-old and 83-year-old males. Neither had a chronic condition.
The third death was in Morgan County and was of a 67-year-old male with a chronic condition.
The Northeast Health District added 50 cases of COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Tuesday, leading to a drop in the seven-day rolling average of added cases for the second day in a row.
The District did not add any confirmed deaths attributed to the disease, and the seven-day rolling average of added confirmed deaths remained unchanged at 1.4 deaths per day.
With the addition of the 50 cases, the seven-day rolling average of added cases for the 10-county District fell to 55.9 cases per day from 59.7 on Monday.
The Oconee County Planning Commission voted a second time on Monday night to recommend that the Board of Commissioners not rezone 47 acres at the corner of Mars Hill Road and the Oconee Connector for a major shopping center.
The vote on Monday had six Commission members recommending denial and three voting against that recommendation.
The vote on Jan. 19, when the rezone first came before the Commission, had been unanimous, with all eight voting members in favor of denial.
The Northeast Health District added 39 new cases of COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Monday, resulting in a small drop in the seven-day rolling average of added cases.
The District reported no new confirmed deaths from the disease, resulting in a drop in the seven-day rolling average of added deaths from 1.7 confirmed deaths added each day to 1.4.
Oconee County, for the second day in a row, did not add any new cases of COVID-19, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases remained unchanged at 3.4 cases per day. The county had not added any new cases last Monday as well.
Boswell Properties, owned by State Transportation Board member Jamie Boswell, is at the center of the rezone involving his client Maxie Price that is before the Oconee County Planning Commission on Monday night.
Boswell not only is listing the 47 acres owned by Price, but he has been informed of a decision by Georgia Department of Transportation senior officials to overrule regional engineers who had rejected Price’s request for access to the Oconee Connector from his property.
The rolling average of added cases of COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District declined on Sunday after a six-day run of increases. The District added no deaths from the disease in the Sunday Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
With the addition of 33 new cases of COVID-19, the seven-day rolling average of added cases decreased to 59.9 from 61.6 on Saturday.
Oconee County did not add any new cases, and its seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped to 3.4 added cases per day from 4.6 on Saturday.
Clarke County added four cases and its seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped to 15.4 from 15.7 on Saturday.
Oconee County voters are likely to be asked to approve a new 1 percent sales tax later this year to help the county meet its public works needs, Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell said in the State of the County address.
Daniell said last week that no decision has been made on when the referendum will be on the ballot, but he said that he expects to have the issue on the agenda of a Commission meeting in May or June.
The seven-day rolling averages of both added COVID-19 cases and confirmed deaths from the disease increased in the Northeast Health District with the release of the Saturday Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health.
The increase of the rolling average of added cases was the sixth in as many days.
The District added three confirmed deaths, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths increased to 1.7 deaths per day from 1.3 deaths per day on Friday.
The rolling averages of added COVID-19 cases and deaths in the Northeast Health District changed only slightly with the Friday release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The District added 66 cases of the disease, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 57.0 from 56.9 on Thursday. That rolling average has increased, albeit by small increments, for each of the last five days.
For the fourth day in a row, the seven-day rolling average of added COVID-19 cases increased in the Northeast Health District on Thursday as the state Department of Public Health recorded 57 new cases of the disease in the District.
The Department of Public Health added three confirmed deaths from COVID-19, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths remained unchanged at 1.4 deaths per day.
Two of the deaths–of a 73-year-old male with a chronic condition and of a 74-year-old male with a chronic condition–were in Jackson County. That county now has 137 deaths from the coronavirus.
Georgia Department of Transportation Chief Engineer Meg Pirkle has overruled the District 1 project team in favor of a full access median commercial break for a major shopping center on the Oconee Connector between SR 316 and Mars Hill Road.
In a letter dated April 6 and posted by Oconee County planning staff on the county website on Wednesday, Pirkle told land owner Maxie Price she was honoring Price’s request for maintenance of the existing median break on the Connector and for an access cut to his property.
As such, she was overturning a decision by Jason Dykes, District 1 traffic engineer, who in an email message to Oconee County on Jan. 12 said the existing median opening would be closed as part of a more than $70 million reconstruction of the SR 316 interchange with the Oconee Connector.
The seven-day rolling average of added COVID-19 cases increased for the third day in a row in the Northeast Health District with the addition on Wednesday of 79 new cases of the disease in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The increases in the rolling average have been small, from 48.4 on Sunday to 52.9 on Tuesday and 55.0 on Wednesday.
The District increases in cases are reflected at the state level as well, which has seen increases each day since Friday.
The Northeast Health District added 77 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, and, for the second day in a row, the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased.
The District did not add any new confirmed deaths, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths remained unchanged at 2.0 deaths per day.
Attorney William Berryman wants Oconee County commissioners to reject three elements of the county’s planning staff report on a rezone request by his client for a shopping center at the Oconee Connector and Mars Hill Road.
The planning staff is wrong is saying that three parcels owned by Maxie Price’s Deferred Tax can be developed under the current zoning classification, Berryman said in a March 2 letter to the commissioners.
As a result, if the commissioners deny the rezone request it will be a denial of applicant Maxie Price’s constitutional rights to develop his property as protected by the U.S. Constitution, Berryman said.
With the release of the Georgia Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Monday, the seven-day rolling average of added COVID-19 cases in the Northeast Health District increased, as did the rolling average of added confirmed deaths from the disease.
The District added only 40 cases on Monday, usually a light reporting day, and the District had added 36 cases last Monday.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases in the 10-county District increased to 49.0 from 48.4 on Sunday.
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report listed 45 new cases of COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District on Sunday, resulting in a slight drop in the seven-day rolling averages of added cases of the disease in the District.
The Daily Status Report listed no new confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, and the seven-day rolling average of added confirmed deaths remained unchanged at 1.7 deaths per day.
With the addition of the 45 cases, the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the 10-county District fell to 48.4 from 48.9 on Saturday. The rolling average has dropped each of the last five days.
With the addition of only 35 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the seven-day rolling average of added cases in the Northeast Health District fell for the third day in a row.
The District added no confirmed deaths from the disease, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths fell for the second day.
The seven-day rolling averages of added COVID-19 cases and confirmed deaths from the disease fell on Friday with the release of the Department of Public Health’s Daily Status Report.
The District added 65 cases and four confirmed deaths.
Two of the confirmed deaths were in Clarke County, and the other two were in Walton County.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases of COVID-19 dropped in the Northeast Health District on Thursday, but the seven-day rolling average of added confirmed deaths from the disease increased slightly.
The Department of Public Health added only 44 new cases of the disease, but it reported three new confirmed deaths in its Thursday Daily Status Report.
The Northeast Health District added 64 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and five confirmed deaths from the disease, resulting in a decrease in the rolling average of added cases and an increase in the rolling average of added deaths.
Two of the confirmed deaths listed in the Wednesday Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health were in Clarke County. Those deaths were of 56 year-old and 60-year-old females, neither of whom had a chronic condition.
With the addition of 50 new cases of COVID-19 and no deaths from the disease in Tuesday’s Daily Status Report, the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased in the Northeast Health District while the rolling average of added deaths from the disease remained unchanged.
The increase in the rolling average of added cases, to 58.0 on Tuesday from 55.9 on Monday, reversed a five-day drop in the rolling average of added cases.
The seven-day rolling average of added deaths stood at 1.6 deaths per day. That average had dropped six days in a row prior to Tuesday.
Oconee County Rep. Houston Gaines promoted his House Bill 286 as a way to keep local governments from reducing funding of police, but its focus is quite narrow and it will have limited effect in Oconee County if it becomes law.
The bill would constrain the budget decisions of the City of Watkinsville, but it would not affect budgeting in the county’s other three cities or of Oconee County government itself.
The bill targets cities with police departments and the 12 counties in the state that also have police departments.
The rolling averages of added cases of COVID-19 and added confirmed deaths from the disease continued to decline in the Northeast Health District on Monday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The last increase in the case average was six days ago, and the last increase in the rolling average of confirmed deaths was nine days ago.
The District added only 36 cases of COVID-19, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases dropped to 55.9 from 57.1 on Sunday.
The seven-day rolling averages of both added COVID-19 cases and of deaths from the disease dipped just slightly in the Northeast Health District on Sunday, the fourth day in a row in which both averages declined.
The Department of Public Health’s Daily Status Report listed 48 new cases of COVID-19 in the 10-county Northeast Health District and no new deaths from the disease.
The rolling averages of both COVID-19 cases and deaths from the disease dropped for the third day running in the Northeast Health District with the release of the Daily Status Report by the Department of Public Health on Saturday.
The Daily Status Report listed two deaths: a 90-plus-year-old female in Clarke County without a chronic condition and an 82-year-old female from Oglethorpe County, also without a chronic condition.
The deaths bring to 880 the number in the District since February of last year.
For the second day in a row, the seven-day rolling average of added COVID-19 cases and of added confirmed deaths from the disease fell in the Northeast Health District with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
Oconee County Schools also reported a large drop in the number of Active Cases of COVID-19 in the schools.
Between 2024 and 2027, the Georgia Department of Transportation will construct full interchanges with flyovers on SR 316 at the Oconee Connector and at Jimmy Daniell Road as well as a flyover of Virgil Langford Road without on and off ramps.
These projects will be “bundled,” Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell told in-person and remote participants in a Town Hall meeting last week.
The rolling averages of both added COVID-19 cases and added deaths from the disease dropped in the Northeast Health District on Thursday with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report.
The District added 61 cases and a single death–of an 88-year-old female in Elbert County without a chronic condition.
The death was the 54th in Elbert County, which has the highest death rate in the District with 285 deaths per 100,000 population.
