The outbreak of COVID-19 in Georgia and Oconee County has added another dimension to an already complex election year in the county.
On Feb. 5, District Attorney Ken Mauldin suddenly announced he would retire, resulting in cancellation of the expected May 19 primary contest and calling into question whether an election would be held at all, even though two announced candidates had been campaigning for months for the spot.
Update 7 p.m. 3/26/2020: Clarke County now has 29 cases and Oconee County has 7. The numbers for the other counties surrounding Oconee are: Barrow (5), Walton (0), Morgan (1), Greene (1), Oglethorpe (0), Jackson (2) and Madison (3). The state now has 1,643 total confirmed cases, 509 hospitalized patients, and 56 deaths. The line chart below reflect the numbers as of noon today. The box above the lines includes the 7 p.m. figures. The increase in the number of cases in the state in the last 24 hours was 18.5 percent.
The Northeast Health District of the Georgia Department of Health has confirmed the first death in the district from COVID-19 with the passing of a 67-year-old Athens male at one of the area’s two hospitals.
The Northeast Health District consists of 10 counties, and, as of 7 p.m. on Tuesday, had 28 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with Clarke’s 17 and Oconee’s 5 dominating.
UPDATE: Oconee County added two new cases of confirmed COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, as did Clarke County. The number of cases in Oconee is now 5, and it is 16 in Clarke. Barrow County still only the one confirmed case. Walton, Morgan and Greene counties now also are reporting a single case, as is Madison County. The number of cases in the state has increased 32.9 percent in the last 24 hours and now stands at 1,026. The chart below summarizes those data. I will update it again after the 7 p.m. Daily Status Report today.
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Update 12:14 p.m. 3/23/20 Oconee now has its third confirmed case of COVID-19. The number of confirmed cases in Clarke is now 14. Barrow still has a single confirmed case. The number of confirmed cases in the state now is 772.
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The original post follows.
While the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has increased dramatically in the state in the last two days, the number of confirmed cases in Oconee, Clarke and Barrow counties has remained stable, according to data released by the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Oconee and Barrow counties are each reporting a single case, and the Department of Public Health has decreased the count of the number of cases in Clarke County from 10 to nine.
UPDATE 3/21/2020 noon: Numbers for Oconee, Clarke and Barrow counties remain unchanged from a day earlier.
UPDATE: Oconee county has its first confirmed case of COVID-19, based on the Georgia Department of Health Daily Status Report for 7 p.m. on 3/20/2020. Clarke now has 10 cases. Barrow has one case.
This original post was based on data from Thursday and has been updated based on the Georgia Department of Health Daily Status Report for 7 p.m. of 3/20/20.
The Georgia Department of Health reported Thursday that Clarke County has eight confirmed cases of COVID-19, up from five on Wednesday. Barrow County has a single case, first reported on Tuesday. (Clarke now has 10 cases, as of 7 p.m. on 3/20/20)
According to the Department of Health report for Thursday, Oconee County still has no confirmed cases, but the Oconee County web site reports a potential exposure of an employee at the County landfill off U.S. 441 in the far south of the county. (Oconee now has one case as of 7 p.m. on 3/20/20.)
After an eight-hour retreat of the Watkinsville Mayor and Council on Monday of last week, Brian Brodrick, mayor pro tem and the longest serving member of the Council, praised his colleagues, including new Mayor Bob Smith, for their team play.
Brodrick made the comment even though Smith had surprised the Council at the retreat with a proposed revision of the City Charter that would that would reverse the action by the Council at the end last year–just before Smith took office–delegating to the city manager some of the duties of the mayor.
Just less than 5 percent of Oconee County’s registered voters had cast a ballot before voting for the March 24 Presidential Primary was suspended by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger at the end of early voting today.
The Presidential Primary now will coincide with the already scheduled May 19 party primaries and nonpartisan judicial elections.
