Health & Fitness

GA Coronavirus: Close To 6,000 Deaths As Labor Day Nears

Georgia's coronavirus numbers are rising more slowly, but they're still rising. The state has 5,977 total COVID-19 deaths as of Saturday

In Saturday’s coronavirus report from the Georgia Department of Public Health, two metro Atlanta counties passed milestones, with Gwinnett County exceeding 25,000 cases and DeKalb County exceeding 17,000 cases.
In Saturday’s coronavirus report from the Georgia Department of Public Health, two metro Atlanta counties passed milestones, with Gwinnett County exceeding 25,000 cases and DeKalb County exceeding 17,000 cases. (Shutterstock)

ATLANTA, GA — As Georgia enters the Labor Day holiday weekend, the state continues to report a slowing increase in coronavirus numbers — but they are still increasing.

In Saturday’s report, two metro Atlanta counties passed milestones, with Gwinnett County exceeding 25,000 cases and DeKalb County exceeding 17,000 cases.

Also, the total number of deaths in Georgia caused by the coronavirus was 5,977 as of Saturday. It will probably pass 6,000 on Sunday.

Find out what's happening in Cartersvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

GEORGIA CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 281,548 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Saturday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 2,285 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Find out what's happening in Cartersvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Georgia also reported 5,977 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 48 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 25,501 hospitalizations — 99 more than the day before — and 4,681 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: 25,540 cases — 101 new
  • Gwinnett County: 25,019 cases — 149 new
  • Cobb County: 17,595 cases — 116 new
  • DeKalb County: 17,004 cases — 104 new
  • Hall County: 8,118 cases — 95 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: 541 deaths — 6 new
  • Cobb County: 401 deaths
  • Gwinnett County: 356 deaths — 5 new
  • DeKalb County: 313 deaths — 2 new
  • Dougherty County: 180 deaths

As of Saturday, Georgia has administered more than 2.7 million COVID-19 tests, with about 10.3 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, 7.8 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 26.7 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 876,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Saturday.

In the United States, more than 6.2 million people have been infected and more than 188,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Saturday. 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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