Georgia Week in Review – April 20

IMPORTANT NOTE: Friday, April 15 marked the last day of daily Covid reporting by Georgia DPH. They are now updating once a week, on Wednesday, as of April 20. I think this change is long overdue, and I am full support of it. While I’ve updated my graphs daily, I have said for a long time that a weekly review of the data is more than enough, and allows people to see real trends without being distracted by day-to-day fluctuations. I am in the process of updating my web site and visualizations to focus on weekly reporting going forward. Some things have moved around or been revised to help fit with the weekly reporting change. If you’re looking for something and can’t find it, please let me know!

Cases have been rising in Georgia, as I pointed out last week, but are still at a low level. Recent cases climbed for the third week in a row, and test positivity is also rising, though still under 5%, and with low testing volume. So far, the increases are primarily limited to the Metro Atlanta region. I added a page for Regional Graphs where you can this quite clearly.

Deaths are up this week by report date a little, but there are still a lot of older deaths being reported from the Omicron wave. No reason to suspect a new uptick in deaths. For the past three weeks, only about 1/4 of the deaths reported are recent, and many deaths being reported are from the January peak.

Hospital metrics in Georgia have leveled off near RECORD LOWS since reporting began in spring/summer 2020. New CDC metrics were announced in late February that incorporate hospital rates as well as more realistic case rates, and they show the country in a pretty good position right now, with most of the country now in the Low level. Although cases are rising in many states, hospitalizations remain very low due to prior immunity from vaccination and infection.

BA.2 seems to be having the most impact in the Northeast, where cases have been rising for weeks and new hospital admissions are starting to rise a little. Due to seasonal/weather differences, it’s unclear if the recent increase in the Northeast will be as noticeable in the South.