The 10-county Northeast Health District added 539 new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending on Friday, and six new confirmed deaths from the disease.
One of those added deaths was of a 79-year-old female in Clarke County without a chronic condition.
The average number of added cases in the week ending on Friday was 77.0, compared with the average in the two weeks ending on Dec. 3 of 59.7.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners approved zoning on Tuesday for a new large medical building and an assistant living community in the fast-developing medical area along Virgil Langford Road between SR 316 and SR 10 Loop.
University Cancer and Blood Center plans to open a 25,000 square-foot medical office on the just less than five acres of undeveloped land on the northeast corner of the Oconee Connector and SR 316.
Valeo Americas plans to develop an age-in-place retirement community with a memory care and assisted living complex, an independent living complex, and senior living cottages on just less than 31 acres fronting on SR 316 but stretching back to the Jennings Mill residential area.
The Oconee County Board of Education decided on Monday to award a $34.4 million contract to Bowen and Watson Construction Company of Toccoa for construction of a third middle school next door to Dove Creek Elementary School in the far northwest of the county.
The estimated total cost of the project is $39.6 million, including furnishing and technology.
Internal documents Oconee County School prepared in advance of the Education Local Option Sales Tax referendum approved by voters in March had estimated the total cost at $36.6 million.
Just more than 70 people turned out at Harris Shoals Park in Watkinsville on Saturday to remember the nearby lynching deaths of three African-American men on that date 100 years earlier.
The group then walked across Experiment Station Road to the approximate site of the lynching and drove three wooden crosses into the ground.
The crosses bore the hand-lettered names of Aron Birdsong, 36, Wes Hale, 55, and George Lowe, 45, Oconee County farmers killed on Dec. 4, 1921.
Oconee County Schools has issued a request for proposals for construction of new, third middle school, with responses due on Nov. 11.
Fred Ricketson, director of facilities for Oconee County Schools, told members of the Board of Education at their work session last month that 11 potential bidders had participated a pre-bid conference and he expected five actual submissions.
The 10-county Northeast Health District added 836 new cases of COVID-19 in the two-week period ending on Friday, and 14 new confirmed deaths from the disease.
One of those added deaths was of a 41-year-old male in Oconee County without a chronic condition.
The Department of Public Health did not issue a Daily Status Report last Friday, the day after the holiday, making the two-week comparison necessary.
The average number of added cases in the two weeks since Nov. 19 was 59.7 per day on Friday, compared with 59.3 in the week ending on Nov. 19.
The redistricting maps passed by the Georgia General Assembly do not have much impact on Oconee County, Representatives Houston Gaines and Marcus Wiedower told Oconee County Republicans on Monday.
The only change is the switch of the East Oconee Precinct from Gaines’ district to Wiedower’s district, they said, using those words, indicating that they plan to run for re-election next year. Both are Republicans.
