GA Coronavirus: Rise In COVID-19 Cases, Deaths Continues To Slow

ATLANTA, GA — The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 294,314 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Sunday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 1,455 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 6,333 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 47 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 26,369 hospitalizations — 42 more than the day before — and 4,827 admissions so far to intensive-care units.

Because of lags in reporting, coronavirus numbers reported over weekends are generally lower and don’t necessarily reflect overall trends.

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: 26,225 cases — 117 new
• Gwinnett County: 25,806 cases — 80 new
• Cobb County: 18,495 cases — 62 new
• DeKalb County: 17,536 cases — 59 new
• Hall County: 8,362 cases — 21 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: 555 deaths — 1 new
• Cobb County: 413 deaths — 3 new
• Gwinnett County: 375 deaths —3 new
• DeKalb County: 339 deaths — 4 new
• Dougherty County: 181 deaths

As of Sunday, Georgia has administered nearly 2.9 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 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 just more than 10 percent and is now starting to slowly drop. 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 28.8 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 921,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Sunday.

In the United States, more than 6.5 million people have been infected and nearly 194,000 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.