Both Fayette County and the state of Georgia have encouraging news showing up in the daily measure of new Covid-positive tests during the prior 14 days.
Georgia’s 2-week percentage fell Saturday to below 5% for the first time in many months. Fayette County reported a full week of rates below 5%, a positive sign.
For the week March 28 through April 3, Fayette began the week on Sunday at a 4.3% 2-week rate, and the rate declined each day to hit 3.4% on Saturday. That’s the lowest 2-week rate for Fayette since the county rate was 2.9% on Oct. 17 last year, more than 5 months ago.
Fayette’s daily new case number totaled 42 for the week, for a daily average of 6 new cases. The county total is now 6,437.
The county registered the Covid-caused death of 1 resident on April 1 last week — a white female, age 69, with an underlying medical condition, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. Fayette’s death toll from Covid-19 now is 142 since March of last year.
5 residents were hospitalized last week for treatment of the coronavirus infection, bringing the pandemic total to 245 hospitalizations, DPH reported.
The statewide increase of new cases went to 6,327 last week, an average of 904 per day. A chart accompanying this article shows the 7-day moving average of new cases.
Last week, the state measured 261 fatalities, about 37 deaths per day, with a pandemic total of 16,748, a death rate of 1.96% of all confirmed cases.
An early concern of health authorities last year was whether a Covid surge would overwhelm hospitals, esspecially intentive care units. That risk has just about disappeared, as shown by an accompanying graph of the medical facility patient census statewide.
Just under 600 people with Covid were newly admitted to hospitals statewide last week, while 82 patients went into intensive care units. Covid patients across Georgia represented just 7.5% of all patients — 1,115 Covid patients out of 14,955 hospital patients with other issues. That’s down from a January peak of 33% of all patients, more than 5,700 occupying hospital beds Jan. 13.
There were 429 fewer patients hopitalized last week than the week before, including 81 fewer Covid patients, according to state figures.
