NE Health District Sets New Record For Added COVID-19 Cases

The state of Georgia added 4,689 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, a new record, and the Northeast Health District followed suit by adding 160 new cases, also the largest number added in a single day.

Fifteen of those new cases were in Oconee County, the second largest number ever added in a single day, and 65 were in Clarke County, the largest number ever added in a single day.

Every county in the 10-county Northeast Health District added cases on Saturday, and the seven-day rolling average of added cases increased to 122.1, the highest moving average the District has ever recorded.

The Department of Public Health added two new deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the Saturday Daily Status Report, of a 38-year-old male in Barrow County without a known chronic condition and of a 75-year-old male in Walton County, also without a known chronic condition.

Despite the addition of the two deaths, the seven-day rolling average of added deaths dropped to 1.0 from 1.4 on Saturday because the District had added five deaths on Saturday of last week.

The Georgia Emergency Management Agency stated on Saturday that 12 Critical Care Beds were available at area hospitals, up from six in the report on Friday. The area’s two hospitals have 70 Critical Care Beds.

Clarke’s County surge of cases–724 in the last 21 days, compared with 137 in Oconee County–puts Clarke far in the lead in the 10-county Northeast Health District in terms of number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 1,205 (Oconee has 283).

Only 1.2 percent of Clarke County’s reported cases has resulted in a death, however, compared with 4.9 percent in Oconee County.

For more on the anomaly of Clarke County, for state data, and for charts summarizing local and state data, please go to Oconee County Observations.