The 10-county Northeast Health District added 4,077 new cases of COVID-19 in the first five days of 2022, and four confirmed deaths from the disease.
The average number of added cases per day in those first five days was 815.4, compared with 663.4 in the seven days ending on Dec. 31.
The Georgia Department of Public Health did not release its usual Daily Status Report on either Thursday or Friday, citing unspecified problems with its Electronic Laboratory Reporting system.
The Northeast Health District had added 4,644 cases in the week ending on Dec. 31, based on the Daily Status Report, and 11 confirmed deaths from the disease.
Oconee County added 221 new cases in the five days ending on Wednesday, or an average of 44.2 cases per day, compared with 345 new cases in the week ending on Dec. 31, or 49.3 cases per day.
Clarke County added 920 new cases in the five days ending on Wednesday, compared with 1,178 new cases in the week ending on Dec. 31. That is an average of 184.0 in the first five days of the year compared with an average of 168.3 in the last seven days of last year.
Rolling Averages
The seven-day rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Wednesday per 100,000 population was 124.1. and it was 166.5 in Clarke County.
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On Dec. 31, those rolling averages had been 119.6 in Oconee County and 133.2 in Clarke County.
The unstandardized rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Wednesday was 51.9, compared with 50.7 on Friday of last week.
The unstandardized seven-day rolling average was 65.1 in Oconee County on Jan. 3, a new record for the county going back to the beginning of the pandemic in February of 2020.
In Clarke County, the unstandardized seven-day rolling average of added cases on Friday was 214.3, compared with 171.1 on Friday of last week.
The seven day rolling average in Clarke County was 215.1 on Tuesday, which greatly exceeds the seven day rolling average 175.0 on Sept. 6, 2020, the highest recorded figure before the Jan. 1, when that average was 185.1
The four confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the Northeast Health District in the last five days were in Jackson (1) and Walton (3) counties.
The Northeast Health District now has recorded 1,304 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Northeast Health District had 125 “probable” deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, up three from the week before. One of those added “probable” deaths was in Oconee County, one was in Barrow County, and one was in Jackson County.
Oconee County Schools
As of the end of classes on Thursday, Oconee County Schools had recorded 445 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the school year on Aug. 4, based on data released by the schools in response to open records requests filed by a group of parents.
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The parents are reporting the released data on the Safety First Facebook page, but they also have released the data to me for my own analysis.
As of the beginning of the first week of classes for 2022 on Jan. 3, the number of reported cases had been 428, up by 15 since Dec. 13. (Classes didn’t start until Jan. 4, though Jan. 3 was a teacher planning day.)
Oconee County Schools recorded 17 positive tests from Jan. 4 to Jan. 6. Fourteen of those were by students, and three were by staff.
Oconee County Schools releases to the public only the number of Active Cases in the schools at the end of the class week.
In its report on Friday, Oconee County Schools reported 25 Active COVID-19 Cases, compared with 10 cases in the week ending on Dec. 17.
In the data released to parents, Oconee County Schools had only the 17 active cases through Thursday. Fourteen of those cases were recorded on Thursday. That suggests eight cases were added on Friday, though it could be higher depending on when cases recorded earlier were declared inactive.
School Age Data, Test Positivity Rates
Oconee County added 52 cases among those aged 5 to 17 in the week ending at the beginning of the day on Jan. 6, according to the School Aged COVID-19 Surveillance Data released by the Department of Public Health on Friday.
The report showed an addition of 359 cases across all age groups in the last week, with 13 of them for children under five years of age, 30 for persons 18 to 22, and 274 for those persons 23 years old and older.
The percentages of added cases that were for persons 5 to 17 years old was 11.7 on Jan. 6, compared with 17.1 percent a week earlier.
These figures are based on the rapid antigen and molecular tests results.
In Oconee County, the seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate of the molecular PCR test for COVID-19 was 32.3 percent on Wednesday, the last day for which data are available, down from the 33.7 on Friday of last week. The PCR test is considered to be the more reliable of the tests.
In Clarke County on Wednesday, the seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate of PCR tests was 33.3 percent on Wednesday, down from 36.2 on Friday of last week.
University, Hospital Reports
The University of Georgia on Wednesday, in its COVID-19 Health and Exposure Updates, reported 171 positive COVID-19 tests, down from 241 in the report for the previous week.
The report on Wednesday covered the period of Dec. 27 to Jan. 2.
The University reported that no walk-in tests were performed on individuals by the University Health Center in the week ending on Jan. 2. The University is not in session, and classes are scheduled to resume on Jan. 10.
The positivity rate for the walk-in tests performed in the week ending on Dec. 26 had been 11.7, up from 3.0 the week before that.
The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that the number of COVID-19 patients at area hospitals was 215, up from 125 on Dec. 31.
The number of ICU beds in use was 61, down from 62 last Friday, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 36, up from 34 a week earlier.
The listed number of available ICU beds at area hospitals is 70.
Vaccine Updates
According to the raw data behind the Department of Public Health Vaccine Distribution Dashboard for Friday, 47.6 percent of the residents of the Northeast Health District had at least one dose of a vaccine and 44.0 percent were fully vaccinated.
Those percentages were changed just slightly from a week ago, when 47.4 percent of the residents of the district had at least one dose of the vaccine and 43.9 percent were fully vaccinated.
In Oconee County, 60.0 percent of the population has at least one dose in Friday’s report, and 56.3 percent is fully vaccinated. Those figures had been 59.8 percent and 56.1 percent a week ago.
In Clarke County, 50.4 percent of the population has as least one dose and 46.7 percent is fully vaccinated. Those figures were 50.2 percent and 46.5 percent last week.
In the Northeast Health District as a whole, 16.7 percent of the population has received a booster. Those figures are 24.1 percent in Oconee County and 20.0 percent in Clarke County.
Of those who are fully vaccinated, 37.8 percent in the District have received a booster. Those figures are 42.7 percent in Oconee County and 42.9 percent in Clarke County.
Last week, of those who are fully vaccinated, 35.4 percent had received a booster. Those figures were 40.2 percent in Oconee County and 40.6 percent in Clarke County.
Oconee County leads the Northeast Health District in the percentage of the population with at least one dose, the percentage fully vaccinated, and the percentage with a booster.
The percentages reported here differ from those on the Vaccine Dashboard because the Department of Public Health uses old projections--and lower numbers--for the populations of the counties.
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