Georgia out of red zone for coronavirus cases, White House says

Georgia is out of the White House’s “red zone” for COVID-19 cases.

The state has moved into the “orange” zone for coronavirus cases in the latest state report from the White House’s coronavirus task force. The orange zone includes states that have between 51 and 100 cases per 100,000 people in the previous week. Last week, Georgia had 92 cases per 100,000 people while the nationwide average was 93 cases per 100,000. Compared to the week prior, the case rate in Georgia is down 18%.

Georgia now has the 23rd highest rate in the country. In mid-August, the state led the nation with the highest rate of new cases for any state. A total of 9,818 cases were reported in Georgia last week.

The report says that improvements have been seen on university campuses and that test positivity overall has decreased. Over the past week, 5.9% of COVID-19 tests in Georgia came back positive. The state reported a total of 118,445 tests performed at a rate of 1,116 per 100,000 people.

Columbus has moved from the green zone to the yellow zone in the task force’s most recent report. Muscogee County’s weekly test positivity rate jumped from 5.3% to 6.1% The World Health Organization’s recommended test positivity percentage is 5% or less for at least 14 days before public health restrictions are relaxed.

Chatthoochee County has also moved from the red zone to the green zone. Chattahoochee County, home to Fort Benning, reported 19 cases from Sept. 19 to 25, down from 84 cases the week before. However, the county’s weekly test positivity rate jumped from 2.9% to 14.3%.

LaGrange has moved from the green zone to the orange zone.

The report recommends that Georgia continues its strong mitigation efforts statewide and especially in university towns. Rapid testing and contact tracing of symptomatic students is recommended, as well as routine surveillance testing of students to find asymptomatic cases.

Ledger-Enquirer reporter Nick Wooten contributed to this report.