GA Coronavirus: 1,452 New COVID-19 Cases, 52 More Deaths

ATLANTA, GA — The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 311,046 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 24. According to the health department’s website, that includes 1,452 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 6,822 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 52 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 27,903 hospitalizations — 154 more than the day before — and 5,120 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 Gwinnett County joining it with more than 27,000 cases. Also, Hall County surpassed 9,000 cases of COVID-19 for the first time Thursday.

• Fulton County: 27,305 cases — 58 new
• Gwinnett County: 27,051 cases — 120 new
• Cobb County: 19,354 cases — 71 new
• DeKalb County: 18,418 cases — 116 new
• Hall County: 9,035 cases — 86 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: 569 deaths — 1 new
• Cobb County: 423 deaths — 1 new
• Gwinnett County: 398 deaths
• DeKalb County: 357 deaths — 4 new
• Dougherty County: 186 deaths — 1 new

As of Thursday, Georgia has administered more than 3.1 million COVID-19 tests, with about 10 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10.3 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 8.2 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 10.1 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 32 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 979,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Thursday.

In the United States, more than 6.9 million people have been infected and more than 202,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Thursday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.