GA Coronavirus: COVID-19 Numbers Continue To Fall Across State

ATLANTA, GA — The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 277,288 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Thursday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 2,733 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 5,868 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 75 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 25,259 hospitalizations — 234 more than the day before — and 4,628 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.

• Fulton County: 25,339 cases — 189 new
• Gwinnett County: 24,763 cases — 155 new
• Cobb County: 17,375 cases — 165 new
• DeKalb County: 16,837 cases — 121 new
• Hall County: 7,946 cases — 77 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: 531 deaths — 4 new
• Cobb County: 397 deaths — 2 new
• Gwinnett County: 346 deaths — 3 new
• DeKalb County: 311 deaths — 2 new
• Dougherty County: 179 deaths

As of Thursday, Georgia has administered more than 2.6 million COVID-19 tests, with about 10.4 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10.5 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 7.7 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 10.2 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 just more than 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 26.1 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 865,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Thursday.

In the United States, more than 6.1 million people have been infected and more than 186,000 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.