600 deaths. 5 days. Georgia breaks record as COVID-19 fatalities spike
Georgia health officials confirmed a recording-breaking 159 new COVID-19 deaths Friday. The latest toll marks the end of a five-day period where 600 new COVID-19 deaths were confirmed by the state health department, the deadliest reporting stretch of the pandemic to date.
“We’re not even to the end of the week yet, and we’ve already smashed the (weekly) record,” said Dr. Amber Schmidtke, a member of a Georgia coronavirus data advisory task force. Schmidtke tracks weekly numbers from Saturday to Sunday.
It’s important to note that those figures do not necessarily reflect when the deaths actually occurred. Reporting lags occur because it takes time for the deaths to be confirmed. Deaths recorded by date of death are also increasing but remain below the summer peak. However, the most recent two weeks of data for this section is not complete. It’s likely those numbers will increase.
Georgia health officials also reported 7,394 confirmed cases and 2,759 antigen-positive cases Friday. Since the start of the pandemic, 668,068 confirmed cases and 10,878 confirmed deaths have been reported.
Some counties also set death records Friday. Muscogee County reported six, matching its previous record from August. The county also reported 127 new cases.
Macon-Bibb County’s Friday pandemic stats didn’t break previous records. The county reported 82 new cases and two new deaths.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 5:09 PM.