Saturday, November 12, 2022

COVID Cases At Area Hospitals Decline; Case Count For Northeast Health District Largely Unchanged

***CDC Increases Rating Of Transmission In Oconee***

The Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Friday that area hospitals had 13 COVID-19 patients, down from 19 last Friday.

The number of ICU beds in use on Friday was 65, down from 69 a week earlier, and the number of adult ventilators in use was 24, down from 27 on last Friday.

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported six new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District in its report on Wednesday. It had reported five new confirmed deaths last week.

One of the new confirmed deaths was in Clarke County.

The Georgia Department of Public Health also reported that the Northeast Health District added 165 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Nov. 9, based on the Department’s electronic tracking system.

That number of added cases on Nov. 2 was 168.

The Georgia Department of Public Health’s 10-county Northeast Health District includes Oconee and Clarke counties. The other counties are Barrow, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Madison, Morgan, Oglethorpe, and Walton.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed the classification of the Transmission Rate for Oconee County from Moderate last week to High, while the Transmission Rate in Clarke County remained Moderate.

The CDC continues to rate the Influenza Activity Level for Georgia as Very High, and it reports that the percent of tests for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) that are positive is down slightly from a week earlier.

The CDC is not reporting county level data for Influenze or RSV.

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.

The average number of added cases per day in the last seven days ending on Nov. 9 in the Northeast Health District was 23.6, compared with 24.0 on Nov. 2.

Oconee County added 12 cases in the seven days ending on Wednesday. The county added 17 cases in the seven days ending on Nov. 2.

Clarke County added 26 new cases in the seven days ending on Nov. 9. It had added 74 cases in the week ending on Nov. 2.

The unstandardized rolling average of added cases in Oconee County on Nov. 9 was 1.4. It had been 2.6 on Nov. 2.

The unstandardized seven-day rolling average of added cases in Clarke County on Nov. 9 was 4.3. It had been 5.7 on Nov. 2

Deaths

The Clarke County confirmed death from COVID 19 was of an 89-year-old male without a chronic condition.

The death brings to 234 the number of confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in Clarke County since the outbreak of the pandemic in February of 2020. That is 181.9 deaths per 100,000 population, the lowest rate in the Northeast Health District.

The remaining five new confirmed deaths from COVID-19 reported on Wednesday by the Department of Public Health were in Barrow County (1), Elbert County (1), Jackson County (1), and Walton County (2).

The Northeast Health District now has recorded 1,687 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District since February of 2020, or 318.2 deaths per 100,000 population.

The Northeast Health District reported 183 “probable” deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, the same number as a week earlier.

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.

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The Centers for Disease Control and prevention rates the Transmission Rate of COVID-19 in Oconee County as High and Clarke County as Moderate, 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 Thursday.

Last week, Oconee County had been Moderate in terms of Community Transmission, and Clarke County also had been rated as Moderate.

The CDC now lists 21 out of the state’s 159 counties as having a High Transmission Rate.

That number was 21 last week, but the counties rated High are not the same as a week ago.

The CDC scale is High (Red), Substantial (Orange), Moderate (Yellow), or Low (Blue).

Neither the CDC more the Georgia Department of Public Health releases county-level data on influenza rates.

The state-wide Influenza Activity Level for Georgia for the week ending on Nov. 5, the most recent rating, lists the level of activity in Georgia as 13, or Very High.

The highest level is 13. The rating last week was 12.

The CDC reports the three-week rolling average of the percent of antigen and PRC detections for RSV in the state.

For the week ending on Nov. 5, the rate was 3.9 (antigen) and 5.9 (PCR).

On Nov. 6 of last year, those rates were 2.9 percent (antigen), and 5.4 percent (PCR).

The three-week rolling averages for last week (Oct. 29) were 4.6 (antigen), and 7.3 (PCR).

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