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 75 new cases resulted in an increase in the seven-day rolling average to 55.4 cases per day from 52.9 on Wednesday. The rolling average had fallen four days in a row prior to Thursday’s Report.
Oconee County added six cases, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 3.3 from 3.1 on Wednesday.
Clarke County added 17 cases, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 11.6 from 11.4 on Wednesday.
The Department of Community Health, in its Long-Term Care Facility report, listed four new cases of COVID-19 among residents of long-term care facilities in the Northeast Health District.
One of those cases was at PruittHealth–Athens Heritage in Clarke County. The others were facilities in Elbert and Walton counties.
Hospital Report, Vaccines
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 (40) increased by three from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (62) increased by eight from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (35) increased by five from the day before.
The Department of Public Health released data on Thursday showing that 17.4 percent of the population of the Northeast Health District is now fully vaccinated.
The figure had been 17.1 on Wednesday.
The District is not keeping up with the state, which has 20.9 percent of the population vaccinated, meaning that the District is behind the state in vaccinations by 3.5 percentage points.
On Wednesday, the District had been behind the state by 3.2 percentage points.
These percentages are based on the population figures given by the Department of Public Health in the Daily Status Report.
The State Vaccine Distribution Dashboard reports higher percentages for the 10 counties in the Northeast Health District (it does not report the data for the District itself) by using lower estimates of the population sizes.
Oconee County Vaccine Rates
The Department of Public Health reports each day the percent of the population in each county that has received at least one dose of the vaccine broken down by demographic groups.
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The data are mislabeled. What are shown are the percentages of the population aged 15 years old and older in each demographic group that has received at least one dose. At present, only persons 16 years old and older can receive the vaccine.
The Department of Public Health reports that the demographic estimates are based on 2018 projections from the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The State has its own estimates of population characteristics, which it uses for the Daily Status Report. The Department of Public Health offers no explanation for the use of two different population estimates.
For consistency, I have used the state figures in all of my calculations.
The Department of Public Health reported on Thursday that it has age data for each of the 13,077 Oconee County residents who have received a vaccine, but is missing sex for 45 of those vaccinated, is missing race for 566 of those vaccinated, and is missing ethnicity for 1,872.
(There is a discrepancy of one between the total number of persons with one vaccination, 13,077, and the totals from the sex, race, and ethnicity tables, which sum to 13,078.)
The Department of Public Health reports that 1,682 persons 75 to 84 have received at least one dose and that this is 100 percent of the persons in the county in that age category.
Based on the state data, the county has 4,512 persons aged 75-84, and the 1,682 vaccinated represents 37.3 percent of that group.
In short, I do not believe the percentages in the Department of Public Health graphics are correct and useful.
The basic problem is that we don’t have good data on the population of the county 10 years after the 2010 Census, and we certainly don’t have good data on the demographic characteristics of that population.
I have presented the raw data reported for Thursday on the number of persons by demographic category where known in the chart at the right, above, without percentages.
State Data
Across the state, the Department of Public Health added 1,828 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 1,472.6 from 1,463.3 on Wednesday.
The Daily Status Report added 34 confirmed COVID-19 deaths across the state on Wednesday, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped to 26.1 from 30.0 on Wednesday.
Eighteen of the added 34 deaths occurred in the last 14 days, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dated by day of occurrence increased on Thursday from Wednesday.
The Daily Status Report eliminated two deaths from the Department of Public Health archives.
The Department of Public Health added 14 “probable” deaths from COVID-19 in Thursday’s Daily Status Report, and the seven-day rolling average of added “probable” deaths was 5.6, up from 4.1 on Wednesday.
The Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) reported on Thursday that the number of COVID-19 patients (1,251) at the state’s hospitals increased from the day before, the number of ICU beds in use (2,368) increased from the day before, and the number of adult ventilators in use (1,041) increased from the day before.
The Department of Public Health on Thursday reported data indicating that 20.9 percent of the state’s population is fully vaccinated, though the Vaccine Distribution Dashboard lists the percent fully vaccinated at a rounded 22 percent.
Across the state, 5,596,431 doses of the vaccine have been administered, representing 89.8 percent of the doses shipped to the state.
Johnson and Johnson has shipped 311,300 doses, but the Department of Public Health has not reported how many of those doses were administered before the hold was placed on the vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists the percentage in Georgia that is fully vaccinated as 20.7.
Georgia has moved ahead of Alabama, which, at 20.6 percent, is the state with the lowest percentage of its population fully vaccinated.
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.
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