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Coronavirus
COVID-19 stats continued to rise in Lumpkin County last week.
Confirmed cases of coronavirus, as reported by the Georgia Department of Public Health, increased from 809 to 881, as of Monday.
Hospitalizations went up from 83 to 88 last week according to the DPH numbers.
The number of deaths increased by two from 12 to 14 in Lumpkin County—an 82-year-old woman and a 59-year-old woman, both with pre-existing medical conditions. This was the first increase in a little under a month.
On the state level, the downward trend continued.
The Seven Day Moving Average has decreased from it's height of 3,746 on July 24 to 1,743 on Monday. The average also dropped from a mark of 1,938 two weeks ago.
Altogether from the beginning of the crisis the DPH reports 307,339 cases in the state with 27,394 hospitalizations and 6,604 deaths.
At last week’s Board of Commissioners meeting Dr. David Miller updated his fellow Lumpkin County Commissioners about what he’s seeing on the ground level.
“Just looking at the number of deaths in Northeast Georgia Health System catchment area, there have been no deaths reported under 40 years of age and 251 of the 291 deaths have all been over 60 years of age,” he said. “And over 95 percent of those have had underlying medical conditions, so that's consistent with the reporting from the rest of the state.”
Miller also reported that, as of last week, 19 of the 21 beds at Northeast Georgia Medical Center Lumpkin were occupied. However, none of those in-house patients had been diagnosed with the virus. This would appear to be in keeping with the Northeast Georgia Health System plan as hospital officials have reported that the majority of coronavirus cases are being handled at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville.
Meanwhile, Miller urged caution for those Lumpkin County residents who could be considered at risk.
“What we're really looking at here are those of us who are in the older populations and have underlying medical conditions really need to be careful and really need to take precautions,” he said.