GA Coronavirus: Another Day, Another 4,000-Plus New Cases

ATLANTA, GA —For the 10th time since the pandemic began, Georgia reported more than 4,000 new cases in a day of COVID-19.

The state’s tally of 4,445 new cases, reported Saturday afternoon, is one of the highest so far. So is the one-day death toll of 71.

Also, Georgia added 274 more hospitalizations, with a total of 3,739 intensive-care admissions so far due to the coronavirus.

Those who test positive for COVID-19 don’t necessarily become ill — in some cases, they may not even show symptoms — but they may spread the coronavirus to others who are vulnerable.

CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 213,427 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Saturday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 4,445 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 4,186 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 72 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 20,556 hospitalizations — 274 more than the day before — and 3,739 admissions so far to intensive-care units.

No information is available from Georgia about how many patients have recovered.

Counties in or near metro Atlanta continue to have the highest number of positives, with Fulton County still in the lead and passing 20,000 positive tests for COVID-19 on Saturday. Also, Hall County passed 6,000 for the first time Saturday.

• Fulton County: 20,049 cases — 402 new
• Gwinnett County: 19,548 cases — 361 new
• DeKalb County: 13,752 cases — 243 new
• Cobb County: 13,336 cases — 287 new
• Hall County: 6,035 cases — 88 new

Counties in or near metro Atlanta also continue to have the most deaths from COVID-19. The lone exception is Dougherty County, site of Georgia's first major outbreak.

• Fulton County: 430 deaths — 10 new
• Cobb County: 319 deaths — 2 new
• Gwinnett County: 260 deaths — 6 new
• DeKalb County: 237 deaths
• Dougherty County: 170 deaths

As of Saturday, Georgia has administered more than 2 million COVID-19 tests, with about 12 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10.9 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 6.8 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 104 percent.

As more Georgians were tested over the last few weeks, positive percentages for both the virus test and tests overall have inched upward. On July 6, the percentage of tests overall that came back positive was only 8.7 percent.

All Georgia statistics are available on the state's COVID-19 website.

Globally, more than 19.4 million people have been tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 723,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Saturday.

In the United States, more than 4.9 million people have been infected and nearly 162,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Saturday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.