ATLANTA, GA — The coronavirus pandemic is far from over, but at least the numbers are trending in the right direction.
Georgia’s Monday afternoon report showed about 1,500 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and only 28 deaths tallied over the last 24 hours. Both numbers are considerably less than peaks from a few weeks ago.
“With hospitalizations at our lowest point since July 6, we are making measurable progress in the fight with COVID-19, but we can’t let up,” Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted Sunday. “I’m asking all Georgians to stay vigilant and continue to use best practices. Together, we’ll win this fight.”
The previous day, Kemp tweeted that the day’s hospitalization number — fewer than 2,000 — was a 38 percent drop since a peak in late July.
CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 270,471 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Monday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 1,523 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.
Georgia also reported 5,632 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 28 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 24,604 hospitalizations — 32 more than the day before — and 4,493 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.
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Fulton County: 24,891 cases — 90 new
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Gwinnett County: 24,252 cases — 70 new
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Cobb County: 16,966 cases — 70 new
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DeKalb County: 16,555 cases — 57 new
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Hall County: 7,714 cases — 109 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.
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Fulton County: 518 deaths — 3 new
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Cobb County: 391 deaths
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Gwinnett County: 336 deaths — 3 new
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DeKalb County: 300 deaths — 2 new
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Dougherty County: 179 deaths
As of Monday, Georgia has administered more than 2.6 million COVID-19 tests, with about 11 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.
For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10.6 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 10.3 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 steadfastly refused to mandate using face masks.
All Georgia statistics are available on the state’s COVID-19 website.
Globally, more than 25.3 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 848,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Monday.
In the United States, more than 6 million people have been infected and more than 183,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Monday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world’s population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.
OTHER NEWS:
This article originally appeared on the Cartersville Patch