COVID-19 Still Spreading In GA — But The Curve Is Flattening

ATLANTA, GA — As Georgians shed shelter-in-place restrictions and dip their toes back into real life, the number of COVID-19 deaths is still rising — but the curve is flattening.

Numbers released at noon Friday by the Georgia Department of Health show 27,134 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,147 deaths. Although the number of confirmed cases increased by more than 1,000, so did the number of tests: Georgia has administered 168,367 tests so far, up about 4,000 since test numbers were last reported on Thursday.

Most of the top 10 counties with the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths are in the metro Atlanta area, with Fulton County still first for cases with 2,850. Dougherty County, though, which has the fifth highest number of cases at 1,523, has the highest death count at 123. Fulton County has 118 deaths as of noon Friday.

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Other counties in the top five are DeKalb at second, with 2,051 cases and 47 deaths; Gwinnett at third, with 1,829 cases and 57 deaths; and Cobb at fourth, with 1,664 cases and 94 deaths.

Graphics on the Georgia health department website show the number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases starting to generally decrease about 10 days ago, thus flattening the curve. Experts, though, say they’re concerned that cases may spike again in July and August if restrictions are lifted too soon.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned on CNN Thursday against “leapfrogging” milestones in order to reopen. A simulator co-developed by Georgia Tech appears to confirm that, predicting more than 23,000 COVID-19 deaths in Georgia by August if safety restrictions are lifted entirely a month from now and leaders do nothing after that.

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