The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that area hospitals had 50 COVID-19 patients, down slightly from the 53 reported a week earlier.
The number of ICU beds in use was 69, down from 71 a week earlier, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 34, down from 38 on Aug. 5.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported that the number of new recorded COVID-19 cases in the Northeast Health District tallied by the electronic tracking system in the week ending on Aug. 10 was 1,097.
The 10-county District had added 1,083 cases in the week ending on Aug. 3.
The Department of Public Heath Report on Wednesday of last week added two confirmed deaths from COVID-19, down from 10 a week earlier.
The Northeast Health District includes Oconee and Clarke counties. The other counties are Barrow, Elbert, Greene, Madison, Morgan, Oglethorpe, and Walton.
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, ending on a Wednesday.
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The Department of Public Health switched to weekly, rather than daily, case counts in April in part because of a concern that its counts under-represent the actual number of cases.
At-home test results are not included in the electronic reporting system.
If the undercount is consistent week-to-week, however, the trends across time would track changes in the occurrence of COVID-19 in the 10-county Northeast Health District as well as in the state.
The average number of added cases per day in the last seven days ending on Aug. 10 in the Northeast Health District was 156.7, compared with 154.7 in the seven days ending on Aug. 3.
Oconee County added 48 cases in the seven days ending on last Wednesday. The county added 45 cases in the seven days ending on Aug. 3.
Clarke County added 217 new cases in the seven days ending on Aug. 10. It had added 203 new cases in the week ending on Aug. 3.
The unstandardized rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Wednesday of last week was 7.4. It had been 6.3 on Aug. 3.
In Clarke County, the unstandardized seven-day rolling average of added cases on last Wednesday was 32.9, compared with 29.3 on Aug. 3.
Deaths
The two confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Aug. 10 release of data by the Department of Public Health for the Northeast Health District were in Walton County.
Walton County now has 395 deaths from the disease, and that represents 408.6 per 100,000 population. Only Elbert and Greene counties have higher rates at 422.7 and 417.7.
Clarke County has the lowest rate, at 178.8 deaths per 100,000 population, followed by Oconee County at 229.7 per 100,000 population.
The 10-county Northeast Health District now has 1,622 confirmed COVID-19 deaths since February of 2020, or 306.0 per 100,000 population.
The Northeast Health District also has 173 “probable” deaths from COVID-19. That number is unchanged from last week.
Focus On Hospital Reports
In its announcement in April, 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 include 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.
Neither Oconee County Schools nor the University of Georgia is any longer reporting COVID-19 cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and prevention rates the Transmission Rate of COVID-19 in Oconee and Clarke counties as high, based on total number of new cases per 100,000 population in the last seven days and the percentage of Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests that are positive during the last seven days, ending on last Thursday.
Every county in the state of Georgia is rated as High Transmission except Glascock (Low), Wheeler (Substantial), and Baker (Substantial.)
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