GA Tops 6,000 Coronavirus Deaths Over Labor Day Weekend

ATLANTA, GA — Georgia marked the day before Labor Day by passing a grim milestone: It became the 10th state — and only the second state in the Southeast — to record more than 6,000 deaths from COVID-19.

In Georgia’s daily report Sunday, the health department tallied 60 more deaths from COVID-19 over the last 24 hours, bringing Georgia’s total since the pandemic began to 6,037.

Georgia passed 5,000 deaths from the coronavirus on Aug. 22, meaning it took only about two weeks for 1,000 more people to die.

As of Sunday, Georgia ranks 10th among U.S. states for total deaths from COVID-19. New York is ranked first, followed by New Jersey, California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Florida, the other Southeastern state in the top 10, has recorded about twice as many COVID-19 deaths as Georgia.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only heart disease and cancer have killed more Georgians this year.

GEORGIA CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 283,199 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Sunday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 1,664 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 6,037 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 60 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 25,523 hospitalizations — 22 more than the day before — and 4,684 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: 25,631 cases — 91 new
• Gwinnett County: 25,107 cases — 88 new
• Cobb County: 17,734 cases — 139 new
• DeKalb County: 17,089 cases — 85 new
• Hall County: 8,143 cases — 25 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: 545 deaths — 4 new
• Cobb County: 404 deaths — 3 new
• Gwinnett County: 359 deaths — 3 new
• DeKalb County: 315 deaths — 2 new
• Dougherty County: 180 deaths

As of Sunday, 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, 10.4 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 7.9 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, nearly 27 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 881,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Sunday.

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 Sunday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.