GA Coronavirus: 2,313 New Cases Of COVID-19, 63 More Deaths

ATLANTA, GA — The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 305,021 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Saturday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 2,313 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 6,599 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 63 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 27,338 hospitalizations — 135 more than the day before — and 4,992 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. Two of these counties also marked milestones: Cobb County hit 19,000 cases of COVID-19, and DeKalb County passed 18,000.

• Fulton County: 26,910 cases — 132 new
• Gwinnett County: 26,550 cases — 147 new
• Cobb County: 19,000 cases — 59 new
• DeKalb County: 18,006 cases — 99 new
• Hall County: 8,757 cases — 123 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: 564 deaths — 1 new
• Cobb County: 421 deaths — 2 new
• Gwinnett County: 391 deaths — 3 new
• DeKalb County: 349 deaths — 3 new
• Dougherty County: 182 deaths

As of Saturday, Georgia has administered more than 3 million COVID-19 tests, with about 10 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10.3 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 8.1 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 10.1 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 and is now starting to slowly drop. 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 30 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 954,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Saturday.

In the United States, more than 6.7 million people have been infected and nearly 199,000 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.