NE Health District Adds 10 COVID-19 Cases; State Adds 1,800

On the day that the Georgia Department of Public Health reported the largest number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 ever, the Northeast Health District reported only 10 new confirmed cases.

Those new cases were spread throughout the 10-county Northeast Health District, with Oconee County adding one case and Clarke County adding two.

The Daily Status Report on Saturday listed no new deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District, and the seven-day rolling average dropped from 1.4 pm Friday to 1.3 on Saturday.

The Georgia Emergency Management Agency reported on Saturday that the number of Critical Care Beds in use at area hospitals decreased from 60 beds on Friday to 55 in the Saturday report.

The state report of 1,800 new cases is 275 cases more than were reported on April 17, the previous record, and follows a report of 1,097 new cases on Friday.

The seven-day rolling average of added cases jumped to 1,001.1 on Saturday, and the evidence of an upturn in the number of cases in the state going back to the beginning of the month is now unmistakable.

The Department of Public Health estimates the date of onset of the disease as well as the date it is reported, and already 1,245 cases are estimated to have occurred on June 15 and 3,618 have occurred in the last week.

In the week before that, ending on June 13, 5,613 cases initiated. In the week before that, ending on June 6, 5,217 cases began. And in the week before that, ending on May 30, 4,635 cases began.

The number of tests also has increased, but the ratio of confirmed cases to tests has increased in each of the last three days over the day earlier.

For more on this story, with charts showing the major trends, please go to Oconee County Observations.