Saturday, January 02, 2021

Northeast Health District Adds 474 New COVID-19 Cases, Two Deaths From Disease; Area Hospitals See Large Increase In COVID Patients

***Seven-Day Rolling Averages Of Added Cases Increase***

The Northeast Health District added 474 new cases of COVID-19 with the release of the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Saturday and two deaths from the disease–in Oconee and Jackson counties.

The Oconee County death was of a male of unspecified age without a known chronic condition.

The death brings to 41 the number from the disease in the county and puts the county’s death rate at 98.2 per 100,000 population, the third highest in the 10-county Northeast Health District, behind only much smaller (in terms of population) Greene and Elbert counties.

Early Voting Strong In Oconee County For Tuesday Runoff, But Not At Level Of November

***Votes Cast At End Of Early Voting More than 1,500 Behind November***

Nearly six in 10 of Oconee County’s active voters already had cast a ballot in the Jan. 5 runoff elections at the end of early voting on Thursday.

In the 12 days of early voting itself, 13,477 voters had gone to the Civic Center to select candidates in the two U.S. Senate runoff races and the state Public Service Commission runoff.

In addition, 4,040 had returned an absentee ballot, for a total of 17,517 votes cast, or 57.4 percent of the county’s 30,542 active voters or 54.8 percent of the county’s 31,985 registered voters.