Health & Fitness
NE Health District Adds Two COVID-19 Deaths, 35 New Cases
The Department of Public Health Daily Status Report lists 953 new cases across the state. Oconee County is experiencing a growth spurt.
The 10-county Northeast Health District of the Georgia Department of Public Health added two deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 35 new confirmed cases of the disease in the Daily Status Report released at 3 p.m. on Thursday.
The new deaths–in Clarke and Barrow counties–moved the seven-day rolling average of added deaths up from 2.3 deaths per day on Wednesday to 2.4 deaths per day on Thursday.
The Clarke County death was of a 77-year-old female without known chronic conditions, while the Barrow County death was of a 77-year-old female, also without known underlying conditions.
Find out what's happening in Oconeefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The seven-day rolling average of added confirmed cases in the District dropped from 25.1 new cases per day on Wednesday to 24.0 new cases on Thusday.
Oconee County added just one new confirmed case of COVID-19 on Thursday, but the county is in a growth spurt both in terms of the number of new cases and in terms of deaths going back to the middle of May.
Find out what's happening in Oconeefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The Department of Community Health Long-Term Care Facility Report released late on Thursday listed one new resident death attributed to COVID-19 in the Northeast Health District–at a Walton County nursing home--and three new cases of staff testing positive for the disease.
Two of those staff with positive tests were at the High Shoals Health and Rehabilitation nursing home in New High Shoals in the west of Oconee County, bringing to nine the number of staff at that facility with a positive COVID-19 test outcome.
For the first time, the Department of Community Health on Thursday listed Residents Recovered from COVID-19. Based on that report, the New High Shoals nursing home now has 28 of its 68 residents with the disease.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency on Thursday evening reported that the number of Critical Care Beds available in area hospitals has dropped to 10, the lowest number reported since GEMA began releasing these data on April 17.
For more on this story, with charts summarizing the data for Oconee County, the region and the state, please go to Oconee County Observations.