The Georgia Department of Public Health has announced that its COVID-19 Daily Status Report of March 27 is its last.
“According to the CDC and leading public health officials,” the Department of Public Health states, “COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was.”
“Its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses, including influenza and RSV,” the statement continues.
Persons who seek out the Daily Status Report web site are directed to a new web site that provides information about the virus and how to respond to it.
The Department of Public Health began issuing a Daily Status Report shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic in February of 2020 and moved to issuing the report weekly rather than daily in May of 2021.
The weekly reports contained data gathered and listed on a daily basis and provided information about each county in the state.
Analysis of those data summed across the four years of the Daily Status Report show that Oconee County ranked second from the bottom in cases per 100,000 population and in confirmed deaths from the disease per 100,000 population among the 10 counties in the Northeast Health District.
Final Case Counts
The final report of the Daily Status Report provides data on a daily basis from Feb. 1 of 2020 thorough March 27 of this year.
 |
| Click To Enlarge |
Included are what are called confirmed PRC (Polymerase Chain Reaction) cases, Antigen cases, confirmed deaths from the disease, and probable deaths from the disease. PCR tests are considered to be the “gold standard” of COVID-19 testing.
Data on cases are collected through an electronic reporting system used by medical providers. At-home test results have never been included in the electronic reporting system.
As of the final March 27 report, Oconee County has recorded 8,551 PCR cases and 2,677 Antigen cases, for a total of 11,228 cases. (The cases are not supposed to overlap.)
Clarke County recorded 32,418 PCR cases and 5,324 Antigen cases, for a total of 37,742 cases.
The 10-county Northeast Health District had recorded 130,221 PCR cases and 31,346 Antigen cases, for a total of 161,567 cases.
On a standardized basis, Oconee County reported 26,901.8 cases per 100,000 population, Clarke County reported 29,081.7 cases per 100,000 population, and the Northeast Health District as a whole reported 30,448.1 cases per 100,000 population.
Oconee County ranked second from the bottom in number of cases per 100,000 population, behind Oglethorpe County. Clarke Count ranked fifth from the bottom.
Confirmed Deaths From COVID-19
Oconee County recorded 109 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and 13 “probable” deaths from the disease.
That works out to 261.2 confirmed deaths per 100,000 population and 31.1 probable deaths per 100,000 population.
Clarke County recorded 259 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and 19 probable deaths from the disease, or 199.6 confirmed deaths per 100,000 population and 14.6 probable deaths per 100,000 population.
The Northeast Health District as a whole recorded 1,812 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and 197 probable deaths from the disease.
The deaths per 100,000 population in the Northeast Heath District was 341.5, and the probable deaths per 100,000 population was 37.1.
Oconee County ranked second from the bottom on deaths per 100,000 population, and fourth from the bottom in probable deaths per 100,000.
Clarke County ranked lowest in the Northeast Health District both in terms of confirmed deaths from the disease per 100,000 population and in probable deaths per 100,000 population.
Rolling Averages
In the final seven days of the Daily Status Report, Oconee County reported no new cases of COVID-19, so the raw seven day rolling average of added cases was 0.0, down from 1.3 a week earlier.
 |
| Click To Enlarge |
The unstandardized or raw seven-day rolling average of added cases in Clarke County on March 27 was 3.3. It had been 3.7 on March 20.
Those figures stand in stark contrast with the rolling averages reported in early 2022, when Oconee County reported a seven-day rolling average of 82.1 cases on Jan. 12.
Clarke County reported a seven-day rolling average of 274.4 cases a day earlier.
The first case was reported in Oconee County on March 19, 2020, and the first three cases were reported in Clarke County on March 15.
I posted my first story on COVID-19 on March 19, when those first cases became public.
I have used all available data for my reporting on COVID-19.
With the decision of the Department of Public Health to stop issuing what has been the longest running and is now the only source of data on the disease at the county level, I am ending my COVID-19 updates with this post.
1 comment:
Thanks, Lee, for steadfastly reporting on trends during the COVID-19 pandemic. Oconee County Observations performs a wonderful public service for our community. We would all be much less well informed about very important matters were it not for your hard work. Again, thank you!
Post a Comment