NE Health District Adds Nearly 100 COVID-19 Cases In Last 3 Days

The Georgia Northeast Health District added 37 new cases of confirmed cases of COVID-19 with the noon Daily Status Report of the Department of Health on Thursday, bringing the number of cases added in the last three days to just fewer than 100.

The three days of large number of new cases in the region, which includes Oconee and Clarke counties, follows three days in which the number of reported cases had been low.

The total for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday was 98, while the number for Saturday, Sunday and Monday had been 41.

Daily figures released by the Department of Public Health vary systematically by day of the week, and the 37 cases added on Thursday for the Northeast Health District compared with the 17 cases added a week ago, on April 9.

The moving average for the Northeast Health District suggests the Novel Coronavirus is spreading or that increased testing is revealing cases that previously would have gone undeteced.

Across the state, the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases increased in the 24-hour period ending at noon on Thursday by 682, compared with 685 on Thursday a week ago. The number of deaths increased by 37, compared with nine on April 9.

The Northeast Health District added no new cases of death attributed to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, but Oconee County Coroner Ed Carson said on Thursday that he and Clarke County Coroner Sonny Wilson had still not received testing kits.

Carson said, under the guidelines set up for providing data to the Georgia Department of Health, coroners and other medical examiners are expected to report deaths attributable to COVID-19, but “You can’t report if you can’t test,” he said.

Carson said he has been promised by the Department of Health he will have the tests on Friday.

For more on the story, with charts summarizing the data, please go to Oconee County Observations.