More than a quarter of Oconee County’s registered voters already has cast a ballot, either in person or by absentee, during the just-completed three weeks of early voting for the June 9 election.
The Tuesday election is a merger of the postponed March 24 presidential primary as well as of the party primaries and nonpartisan elections originally scheduled for May 19, and just less than 70 percent of Oconee County voters have used a Republican ballot in voting so far.
Both the Northeast Health District and the state as a whole reported large increases in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and increases in deaths attributed to the disease in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report for Friday.
The seven-day rolling average of added cases of COVID-19 and added deaths attributed to COVID-19 increased both in the 10-county Northeast Health District of the Department of Public Health and across the whole of Georgia.
The 10-county Northeast Health District of the Georgia Department of Public Health added two deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 35 new confirmed cases of the disease in the Daily Status Report released at 3 p.m. on Thursday.
The new deaths–in Clarke and Barrow counties–moved the seven-day rolling average of added deaths up from 2.3 deaths per day on Wednesday to 2.4 deaths per day on Thursday.
Oconee County added a ninth death attributed to COVID-19 in the Wednesday Daily Status Report of the Georgia Department of Public Health, and Walton County added three deaths, bringing the total number of deaths attributed to the disease in the Northeast Health District to 77.
The 10-county Northeast Health District has added 16 COVID-19 deaths in the last week, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths attributed to the disease in the District stood at 2.3 at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the same as the day before.
Oconee County School Superintendent Jason Branch told the Board of Education at its meeting on Monday that he and his staff are reviewing the guidelines from the Georgia Department of Public Education and the Georgia Department of Public Health to determine how schools will reopen in the fall.
The two state departments had released earlier in the day guidelines for school systems regarding the reopening of schools following their closure this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Northeast Health District added seven deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Daily Status Report of the Department of Public Health on Tuesday, with Oconee County and Clarke County each accounting for one of the deaths.
The addition of seven deaths was the largest ever recorded for the 10-county Northeast Health District in a single day, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 2.3 on Tuesday from 1.4 on Monday.
Oconee and Oglethorpe counties each added a death attributed to COVID-19 in the Monday Daily Status Report issued by the Georgia Department of Health, bringing the total number of reported deaths from the disease in each of the counties to seven.
Oconee County’s death was of a female, described as 90 plus years of age and with chronic conditions, while the Oglethorpe death was of a 70-year-old male without known chronic conditions.
