GA Reports 81 More COVID-19 Deaths, Tops 15K Total Cases

ATLANTA, GA — Georgia reported 81 more deaths Wednesday from COVID-19, marking another one-day record.

The state also passed 150,000 cumulative cases for the first time in Wednesday’s daily report.

Until Tuesday — when Georgia reported 78 more deaths — the daily death count had been much lower, hovering between 20 and 30 a day for the last several weeks.

Georgia reported 3,314 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, marking the 13th time this month the state has posted more than 3,000 positives in a day. In addition, Fulton overtook Gwinnett as the Georgia county with the highest number of cases.

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.

Georgia’s spike in numbers comes the same week that many businesses are now requiring customers to wear masks. Walmart, Kroger, Target, Home Depot are among the stores that now mandate face coverings.

CORONAVIRUS NUMBERS

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported a total of 152,302 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at 2:50 p.m. Wednesday. That's 3,314 more than was reported at the same time Tuesday.

Georgia also reported 3,335 deaths so far from COVID-19, 81 more that reported Tuesday. In addition, the state reported 15,922 hospitalizations — 428 more than the day before — and 2,967 admissions 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 pulling ahead of Gwinnett for the lead. Also, DeKalb County topped 10,000 cases for the first time Wednesday.

• Fulton County: 14,169 cases — 390 new
• Gwinnett County: 14,099 cases — 221 new
• DeKalb County: 10,203 cases — 253 new
• Cobb County: 8,966 cases — 207 new
• Hall County: 4,620 cases — 92 new

Counties in or near metro Atlanta also continue to have the most deaths from COVID-19. The lone exception is Dougherty County, the site of Georgia's first major outbreak, which since then has largely stabilized.

• Fulton County: 350 deaths
• Cobb County: 274 deaths
• Gwinnett County: 209 deaths
• DeKalb County: 196 deaths
• Dougherty County: 158 deaths

As of Wednesday, Georgia has administered more than 1.5 million COVID-19 tests, with about 15 percent of those tests the less reliable ones used to detect antibodies.

For the more reliable test for the virus itself, 10.5 percent of tests came back positive. For the less reliable test for antibodies, 5.9 percent came back positive. The overall positive rate was about 9.9 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 15 million people have been infected by COVID-19, and more than 618,000 people have died, Johns Hopkins University reported Wednesday.

In the United States, more than 3.9 million people have been infected and more than 142,000 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.

Today the state of Georgia surpassed 150000 cumulative cases of #coronavirus. Lets put that in perspective.

Georgia passed 50000 total cases on June 5th

Passed 100000 total cases on July 7th
(32 days later)

Passed 150000 total cases today
(15 days later) pic.twitter.com/YIC5n5v5d3
— Georgia Coronavirus Tracker (@Georgiacorona) July 22, 2020

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