Coronavirus: 81 More Deaths In Georgia, Close To 1-Day Record

ATLANTA, GA — Remember all those Fourth of July barbecues and maskless graduation parties? The U.S. may now be paying the price.

As of Tuesday, the U.S. had recorded more than 156,000 deaths and more than 4.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University — more than any other nation on earth.

While the new daily case count of more than 60,000 is somewhat lower than the peak of about 70,000 in late July, cases are rising in 26 states and deaths are rising in 35 states, according to the Associated Press.

On average, about 1,056 Americans are now dying every day from COVID-19. Two weeks ago, an Associated Press analysis showed only about 780 deaths a day.

Georgia did its part Tuesday by reporting 81 more deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. While not a one-day record, it’s close.

The state also reported 2,573 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 302 more hospitalizations.

Those who test positive for COVID-19 don’t necessarily become ill — in some cases, they may not even show symptoms — but they can spread the coronavirus to others who are vulnerable.

CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 197,948 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Tuesday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 2,573 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 3,921 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 81 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 19,426 hospitalizations — 302 more than the day before — and 3,556 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. Gwinnett County exceeded 18,000 and Cobb County exceeded 12,000, both for the first time Tuesday.

• Fulton County: 18,566 cases — 342 new
• Gwinnett County: 18,201 cases — 274 new
• DeKalb County: 12,760 cases — 156 new
• Cobb County: 12,135 cases — 291 new
• Hall County: 5,657 cases — 110 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 topped 400 deaths and Cobb County topped 300 deaths, both for the first time Tuesday.

• Fulton County: 406 deaths
• Cobb County: 304 deaths
• Gwinnett County: 240 deaths
• DeKalb County: 229 deaths
• Dougherty County: 169 deaths

As of Tuesday, Georgia has administered nearly 1.9 million COVID-19 tests, with about 12 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 11 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 6.6 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 10.4 percent.

As more Georgians were tested over the last few weeks, positive percentages for both the virus test and tests overall have inched upward. On July 6, the percentage of tests overall that came back positive was only 8.7 percent.

All Georgia statistics are available on the state's COVID-19 website.

Globally, more than 18.3 million people have been tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 696,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Tuesday.

In the United States, more than 4.7 million people have been infected and more than 156,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Tuesday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.