GA Coronavirus Numbers Continue To Slow, Kemp Announces Briefing

ATLANTA, GA — As Georgia’s numbers continue to improve, Gov. Brian Kemp announced he will hold his first coronavirus briefing in nearly two months Wednesday morning.

The press conference, announced Tuesday, is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday in the north wing of the Georgia State Capitol. Kemp will be accompanied by Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health.

While Kemp has issued several extensions to his coronavirus executive orders in recent weeks, he hasn’t held a press briefing since Aug. 19. During that briefing, Kemp sparred with reporters over a just-leaked report from the White House’s coronavirus task force critical of his strategy to fight the disease.

“This is what’s so frustrating about pandemic politics and leaked reports. We’re glad to talk about these numbers every day,” Kemp said at the time, as reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I will tell you that the media only focuses on the bad numbers. They never focus on the good numbers.”

While Georgia’s numbers have slowed considerably since then, they haven’t stopped rising. On Aug. 19, Georgia reported almost 244,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nearly 5,000 deaths. On Tuesday, the state reported more than 324,000 confirmed cases and more than 7,000 deaths.

GEORGIA CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS FOR OCT. 6, 2020

The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 324,650 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6. According to the health department’s website, that includes only 979 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 7,229 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 39 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 29,154 hospitalizations — 29 more than the day before — and 5,405 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 and other metropolitan areas continue to have the highest number of positives, with Fulton County still in the lead.

1. Fulton County: 28,258 cases — 60 new
2. Gwinnett County: 28,207 cases — 78 new
3. Cobb County: 20,120 cases — 66 new
4. DeKalb County: 19,263 cases — 97 new
5. Hall County: 9,677 cases — 38 new
6. Chatham County: 8,718 — 46 new
7. Richmond County: 7,302 — 10 new
8. Clayton County: 7,182 — 18 removed
9. Cherokee County: 6,289 — 14 new
10. Bibb County: 6,168 — 18 new

Counties in or near metro Atlanta also continue to have the most deaths from COVID-19.

1. Fulton County: 581 deaths — 2 new
2. Cobb County: 435 deaths — 4 new
3. Gwinnett County: 418 deaths — 1 new
4. DeKalb County: 373 deaths — 1 new
5. Dougherty County: 188 deaths
6. Bibb County: 181 deaths — 4 new
7. Muscogee County: 171 deaths
8. Chatham County: 169 deaths
9. Richmond County: 168 deaths — 1 new
10. Clayton County: 163 deaths — 1 new

As of Tuesday, Georgia has administered more than 3.3 million COVID-19 tests, with about 9 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 8.5 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 10 percent.

As more Georgians were tested over the last month, the percentage of positive tests inched upward from about 8 percent to more than 10 percent. However, over the last few weeks, the percentage of positives has stabilized at about 10 percent. According to the World Health Organization, positive test results should no more than 5 percent for two weeks before reopening for business as usual. Georgia largely reopened for business in April and May, and since then Gov. Brian Kemp has promoted the use of face masks but has steadfastly refused to mandate them.

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

Globally, more than 35.6 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 1 million people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Tuesday.

In the United States, nearly 7.5 million people have been infected and more than 210,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Tuesday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.

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