GA Coronavirus Dashboard Begins Listing Antibody Tests Separately

ATLANTA, GA — Georgia added a new feature to its coronavirus reporting this week: On the health department website, positive results from antibody tests are now listed prominently near the top. These numbers are separate from the number of positive results from tests for the coronavirus itself.

Tests for the antibody to the coronavirus — often called antigen tests — detect the presence of antibodies to the coronavirus, an indirect indicator of COVID-19.

Antigen tests for the coronavirus are used because they’re cheaper and faster than tests for the virus itself, which may not show results for several days. Antigen tests are also less accurate and more prone to show false positives and negatives.

Since September, the weekly White House Coronavirus Task Force report has said that all positive antigen reports should be counted as positive tests for COVID-19, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On Sunday, Georgia’s website showed 1,255 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 214 positive tests for antigens, but whether or not the antigen tests were part of the larger number was not clear.

GEORGIA CORONAVIRUS STATISTICS FOR NOV. 8, 2020

The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 373,078 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8. According to the health department’s website, that includes 1,255 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 8,194 deaths so far from COVID-19, with one more death recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 32,468 hospitalizations — 33 more than the day before — and 6,095 admissions so far to intensive-care units.

Coronavirus statistics posted over the weekend are typically lower than they might be otherwise because of lags in reporting.

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: 32,694 cases — 142 new
2. Gwinnett County: 32,167 cases — 122 new
3. Cobb County: 23,090 cases — 64 new
4. DeKalb County: 22,575 cases — 130 new
5. Hall County: 11,172 cases — 22 new
6. Chatham County: 9,732 — 4 new
7. Clayton County: 8,759 — 44 new
8. Richmond County: 8,386 — 14 new
9. Cherokee County: 7,701 — 45 new
10. Bibb County: 6,824 — 9 new

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

1. Fulton County: 636 deaths
2. Cobb County: 468 deaths
3. Gwinnett County: 459 deaths
4. DeKalb County: 408 deaths
5. Bibb County: 204 deaths
6. Chatham County: 194 deaths
7. Dougherty County: 193 deaths
8. Richmond County: 189 deaths
9. Hall County: 184
10. Clayton County: 183 deaths

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

Globally, more than 50.2 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 1.25 million people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Sunday.

In the United States, more than 9.9 million people have been infected and more than 237,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Sunday. 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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