Friday, April 29, 2022

Area Hospitals Report Slight Decrease In COVID-19 Cases; Department Of Public Health Reports No Deaths From Disease In NE District

***Oconee And Clarke Have “Probable” COVID Death***

The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that area hospitals had three COVID-19 patients, down from six on Friday of last week.

The number of ICU beds in use was 57, the same as a week earlier, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 31, down from 32 a week earlier.

The Georgia Department of Public Health announced on April 14 that it would no longer issue a Daily Status Report on COVID-19, in part because of a lack of confidence in its case count due to in-home testing. Instead, it began issuing weekly status reports, starting on April 20.

In its second weekly report, on April 27, the Department of Public Health reported that number of cases tallied in its electronic tracking system increased in the 10-county Northeast Health District by 158 from the Status Report on April 20.

The District had added only 31 cases in the five days leading up to the initial weekly Status Report on April 20.

The Department of Public Heath Report on Wednesday added no new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District since April 20. It had recorded nine confirmed deaths from COVID in the five days leading up to the Daily Status Report on April 20.

Oconee and Clarke counties each reported a “probable” death from COVID in the April 27 report. The Northeast Health District as a whole added six “probable” deaths during the week.

The Northeast Health District includes Oconee and Clarke counties.

Weekly Report

Although the Department of Public Health is releasing a report only weekly, it is gathering data on a daily basis, and the weekly report includes a data file containing case counts each day.

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The average number of added cases per day in the last seven days ending on Wednesday in the Northeast Health District was 22.6, compared with 6.2 in the five days ending on April 20.

Oconee County added 12 cases in the seven days ending on Wednesday. The county did not add any cases in the five days ending on April 20.

Clarke County added 39 new cases in the seven days ending on April 27. It had added 12 new cases in the five days ending on April 20.

The unstandardized rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Wednesday was 1.6, the same as it had been on April 20.

In Clarke County, the unstandardized seven-day rolling average of added cases on Wednesday was 5.9, compared with 6.3 on April 20.

Focus On Hospital Reports

In its announcement on April 14, the Georgia Department of Public Health said “Given the number of at-home COVID tests that do not get reported, there is now a greater focus on other indicators.”

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The announcement directed attention to the data released by the Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

The hospital data available for the area includes the 10 counties in the Northeast Health District plus Hart and Franklin counties. The data are dominated by St. Mary’s and Piedmont Regional in Athens-Clarke County.

University, Oconee County Schools Reports

The University of Georgia on Wednesday, in its COVID-19 Health and Exposure Updates, reported 40 positive COVID-19 tests, down from 42 in the report for the previous week.

The report on Wednesday covered the period of April 18 to 24.

The University reported that 114 walk-in tests were performed on individuals by the University Health Center in the week ending on April 24. That number had been 129 a week earlier.

Five of the 114 tests were positive, for a positivity rate of 4.4 percent. The positivity rate for the walk-in tests performed in the week ending on April 17 was 4.7 percent.

A group of parents continues to file an open records request each week for reported cases at Oconee County Schools. The system responded on Friday that no new cases had been added.

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.

The report on Friday listed no new cases. It had listed one new case a week earlier.

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