GA Coronavirus: Only 880 New Cases, 28 Deaths Reported Sunday
ATLANTA, GA — The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 322,925 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4. According to the health department’s website, that includes only 880 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.
Georgia also reported 7,162 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 28 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 28,958 hospitalizations — 34 more than the day before — and 5,363 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. However, the number of new cases on Sunday is consistent with drops reported over the last two weekends.
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. The three hardest-hit counties all hit milestones Sunday, with Fulton and Gwinnett counties surpassing 28,000 positives and Cobb County surpassing 20,000.
Fulton County: 28,096 cases — 102 new
Gwinnett County: 28,074 cases — 88 new
Cobb County: 20,010 cases — 42 new
DeKalb County: 19,128 cases — 44 new
Hall County: 9,618 cases — 1 new
Chatham County: 8,652 — 6 new
Richmond County: 7,270 — 25 new
Clayton County: 7,178 — 19 new
Cherokee County: 6,239 — 21 new
Bibb County: 6,136 — 8 new
Counties in or near metro Atlanta also continue to have the most deaths from COVID-19.
Fulton County: 579 deaths
Cobb County: 429 deaths
Gwinnett County: 414 deaths
DeKalb County: 371 deaths
Dougherty County: 188 deaths
Bibb County: 177 deaths
Muscogee County: 171 deaths — 1 new
Chatham County: 168 deaths — 1 new
Richmond County: 167 deaths — 1 new
Clayton County: 162 deaths
As of Sunday, Georgia has administered more than 3.3 million COVID-19 tests, with about 9 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.
For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 8.4 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 10 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 about 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, nearly 35 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 1 million people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Sunday.
In the United States, more than 7.4 million people have been infected and more than 209,000 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.
This article originally appeared on the East Cobb Patch
