First Area COVID-19 Death Reported; Oconee Now Has Five Cases

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.

Barrow had two cases, and Greene, Madison, Morgan and Walton had one each. Elbert, Jackson and Oglethorpe have no confirmed cases to date.

The Northeast Health District said the first casualty of the disease had existing medical conditions in addition to testing positive for COVID-19. No other details were provided in the news release, which was dated March 23.

The 7 p.m. Daily Status Report on Tuesday showed an increase of one case in Clarke County and one case in Barrow County from Tuesday’s noon Daily Status Report. The five cases in Oconee County were first reported in the noon report on Tuesday, up from three cases a day earlier.

The 7 p.m. Daily Status Report lists 1,097 confirmed cases of COVID-19, up 37.1 percent from the 800 cases listed at 7 p.m. on Monday.

For the first time, the Daily Status Report listed the number of persons in the state hospitalized with the virus, 361, or 32.9 percent of the confirmed casts. The report listed 38 deaths, up from 26 a day earlier. The 38 deaths represent 3.5 percent of the confirmed cases.

Oconee County commissioners, responding to two requests on Monday that they issue a shelter-in-place order, said local action was unnecessary because the declaration of emergency by Gov. Brian Kemp “automatically puts Oconee County in a local state of emergency.”

For more on this story, please go to Oconee County Observations.