Saturday, March 12, 2022

COVID Cases Continue To Drop In Northeast Health District; Confirmed Deaths From Disease Remain High But Fall From Week Earlier

***Hospital Cases Continue To Decline***

The 10-county Northeast Health District added 134 new cases of COVID-19 in the last seven days ending on Friday, down from 174 last week, and the lowest number added since 63 cases were added in the week ending on July 2, 2021.

The District added 17 confirmed deaths from the disease, down from the 20 deaths added last Friday. Deaths are a lagging indicator of the disease.

One of the confirmed deaths was in Oconee County and two were in Clarke County.

The average number of added cases per day in the last seven days in the Northeast Health District was 19.1, compared with 24.9 in the seven days ending on March 4.

Oconee County added 15 cases in the week ending on Friday, up from the 10 new cases in week ending on March 4.

Clarke County added 41 new cases in the seven days ending on Friday, compared with 32 new cases in the week ending on March 4.

Rolling Averages

The seven-day rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Friday per 100,000 population was 3.1, and it was 2.6 in Clarke County.

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On March 4, those rolling averages had been 3.8 in Oconee County and 4.8 in Clarke County.

The unstandardized rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Friday was 1.3 compared with 1.6 on Friday of last week.

The last time the unstandardized rolling average in Oconee County had been that low was on July 8 of last year.

In Clarke County, the unstandardized seven-day rolling average of added cases on Friday was 3.3, compared with 6.1 on Friday of last week.

The unstandardized seven-day rolling average had been 4.1 on July 7 and 3.1 the day earlier.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 began to spread in late June of 2021 before being replaced by the Omicron variant at the end of the year.

Confirmed Deaths

The Oconee County confirmed COVID-19 death was of an 87-year-old female without a chronic condition.

The Clarke County confirmed deaths were of an 88-year-old female without a chronic condition and of a 90-plus-year-old male without a chronic condition.

Oconee County now has 93 confirmed deaths from COVID-19, or 222.5 per 100,000 population, and Clarke County has 209 deaths, or 162.4 per 100,000 population.

The remaining 14 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the Northeast Health District in the last seven days were in Barrow (1), Greene (1), Jackson (4), Madison (3), Morgan (1), and Walton (4) counties.

The Northeast Health District now has recorded 1,523 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, or 287.3 per 100,000 population.

Clarke County has the lowest number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths per population in the 10-county Northeast Health District, and Oconee County has the second lowest.

Elbert County, with 81 deaths, has the highest number per population, with 412.5 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 per 100,000 population.

The Northeast Health District had 143 “probable” deaths from COVID-19 on Friday, up from 140 a week ago.

Two of the added “probable” deaths were in Elbert County, and one was in Walton County.

No details are given on “probable” deaths.

Oconee County Schools

As of the end of classes on Thursday, Oconee County Schools had recorded 694 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.

The 694 cases is the same number as the week before.

Since the beginning of the school year on Jan. 4 year, Oconee County Schools has added 266 cases. It had recorded 428 cases in the first half of the school year through Dec. 28.

The parents are reporting the data released to them as a result of the open records requests on the Safety First Facebook page, but they also have released the data to me for my own analysis. 

Oconee County Schools releases to the public only the number of Active Cases in the schools at the end of the class week. The data from the previous week are removed when the new data are reported.

In its report on Friday, Oconee County Schools reported no Active COVID-19 Cases, down from one case the week before.

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The chart at the right shows an increase of one case in the data released to the parents, based on the count of cases at the beginning classes on March 7. That case had not been reflected in the previous chart because it was reported after classes began on Feb. 28.

University, Hospital Reports

The University of Georgia on Wednesday, in its COVID-19 Health and Exposure Updates, reported nine positive COVID-19 tests, down from 21 in the previous week.

The report on Wednesday covered the period of Feb. 28 to March 6.

The University reported that 471 walk-in tests were performed on individuals by the University Health Center in the week ending on March 6. That number had been 358 a week earlier.

Only one of the 471 tests was positive, and the positivity rate for the walk-in tests performed in the week ending on March 6 was 0.2 percent, down from the 0.8 percent reported in the week ending Feb. 27.

The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that the number of COVID-19 patients at area hospitals was 36, down from 49 on March 4.

The number of ICU beds in use was 54, down from 63 a week earlier, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 33, down from 34 a week earlier.

The listed number of available ICU beds at area hospitals is 70.

1 comment:

Linda said...

Thank you for continuing to report on the pandemic. I don’t think we can assume we are finished with it yet. I hope everyone is staying vigilant. Perhaps with a better chance of being outside, the virus cases and deaths will remain low, but there is still a chance of another wave, maybe in the fall?
Linda Exum
Watkinsville