The Northeast Health District added 88 confirmed COVID-19 cases with the Saturday release of the Department of Public Health’s Daily Status Report, producing a seven-day rolling average of added cases that has been relatively unchanged for the last week.
Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District added at least one case, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases was 79.1 on Saturday. That figure had been 79.0 on Friday.
The Oconee Chamber of Commerce and the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce on Friday were working out details for the virtual candidate forum being organized for 6 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 14 for races on the Nov. 3 ballot overlapping Oconee and Clarke counties.
Courtney Bernardi, president of the Oconee Chamber of Commerce, said Friday she was waiting on confirmation from three of the 11 invited candidates and well as from the invited moderator.
The Department of Public Health listed 91 new COVID-19 cases and one death from the disease in the Northeast Health District in the Daily Status Report on Friday, and the seven-day rolling averages of cases and deaths in the District remained largely unchanged.
The death was of a male in Walton County with a chronic condition aged 90 plus, and the seven-day rolling average of added deaths in the Status Report was 1.7, the same as on Thursday.
Laura Ormes joined two of the three other candidates for Board of Education Posts 4 and 5 in calling for a mask mandate at Oconee County Schools.
Only incumbent Post 4 Board Member Tim Burgess, Ormes’ opponent in the Nov. 3 election, opposes the mandate. Mask wearing is encouraged but not required under current school policy.
Ormes also said Board members should respond to citizens who write to them, something Joan Parker also said, but neither Burgess nor Michael Ransom did.
With the addition of two deaths from COVID-19 in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Thursday, the Northeast Health District saw continued increases in the seven-day rolling average of added deaths.
The two deaths were in Elbert County. One was a 72-year-old male without a known chronic condition, and the other was of an 88-year-old female with a chronic condition.
With the addition of one new COVID-19 death and 96 new cases of the disease in the Department of Public Health Daily Status Report on Wednesday, the seven-day rolling averages of deaths and cases in the Northeast Health District edged up just lightly.
The death was of a male in Jackson County with a chronic condition listed as 90 plus in age. Jackson County now has 33 deaths, and the Northeast Health District has 255.
The Department of Public Health reported one new COVID-19 death in the 10-county Northeast Health District on Tuesday and 110 new confirmed cases of the disease.
The new death was of a 65-year-old male in Morgan County without a chronic condition. It is only the third death from COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began.
Morgan County has the lowest ratio of deaths per population of the District, just below Elbert County, which also has three deaths from the virus.
