GA Coronavirus: UGA COVID-19 Cases Down From Previous Week

ATHENS, GA — After a spike the previous week, the number of newly confirmed coronavirus infections at the University of Georgia is coming back down.

The university reported only 421 new cases of COVID-19 from Sept. 7 through Sept. 13, according to campus newspaper The Red & Black.

The previous week the University of Georgia drew statewide attention when it reported 1,417 cases of COVID-19 as students returned to Athens. That week’s total has since been adjusted up slightly to 1,490 to reflect newer data.

Since the pandemic started, the university has tallied 3,858 cases of COVID-19 among students, faculty and staff.

GEORGIA CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS

The Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta reported a total of 299,056 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Wednesday. According to the health department’s website, that includes 2,265 newly confirmed cases over the last 24 hours.

Georgia also reported 6,419 deaths so far from COVID-19, with 24 more deaths recorded in the last 24 hours. In addition, the state reported 26,884 hospitalizations — 219 more than the day before — and 4,912 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: 26,517 cases — 157 new
• Gwinnett County: 26,133 cases — 114 new
• Cobb County: 18,719 cases — 118 new
• DeKalb County: 17,777 cases — 79 new
• Hall County: 8,533 cases — 89 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: 557 deaths — 1 new
• Cobb County: 415 deaths — 1 new
• Gwinnett County: 381 deaths — 1 new
• DeKalb County: 340 deaths
• Dougherty County: 182 deaths

As of Wednesday, Georgia has administered more than 2.9 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 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 29.6 million people have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 937,000 people have died from it, Johns Hopkins University reported Wednesday.

In the United States, more than 6.6 million people have been infected and more than 196,000 people have died from COVID-19 as of Wednesday. The U.S. has only about 4 percent of the world's population but more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country.

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