Bulloch County set a single-day record with 64 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported on Thursday, breaking the previous one-day high of 54 cases reported July 3.
Bulloch County Public Safety/Emergency Management Agency Director Ted Wynn said the rise in the number of coronavirus cases is not unexpected. The dual return of college and university students, along with public school starting back on Aug. 17, are likely contributing to the increase of cases, he said.
The 64 new cases reported Thursday brings the total number of confirmed cases in Bulloch to 1,610 since the start of the pandemic. East Georgia Regional Medical Center staff were caring for 20 patients Thursday, six of whom were on ventilators, Wynn said.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bulloch County has reported 111 hospitalizations and 21 deaths. Bulloch County EMS has transported a total of 94 people with probable COVID-19 and 90 with confirmed cases, he said.
In Georgia, the state reported 2,550 new cases Thursday, pushing the total number of confirmed cases to 263,074. The state reported 86 deaths Thursday, raising the death toll to 5,393.
In the United States, 180,380 Americans have died from coronavirus, and the U.S. has recorded 5,854,342 confirmed cases, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Mobile testing
Meanwhile, Gov. Brian Kemp said on Wednesday that he's considering creating mobile testing strike teams to deploy to schools and colleges to control COVID-19 outbreaks.
Kemp said the teams could also be used to control coronavirus outbreaks at long-term care facilities. The Republican governor has expressed frustration in recent days that fewer people are being tested in Georgia than at the peak of the summer outbreak in late July, meaning the state has unused testing capacity.
“If we have those mobile teams, instead of having people at a fixed site somewhere that nobody’s going to visit to get tested, let’s take those resources and take them somewhere we need them for testing,” Kemp said.
While the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases continues to decline slowly in Georgia, the state continues to have the second-highest number of newly confirmed cases per capita over the past 14 days, according to calculations by The Associated Press.
Democrats pressed Kemp on Wednesday to do more to alleviate economic suffering because of the pandemic. A letter signed by 28 House Democrats calls on state government to hire more Georgia Department of Labor employees to speed processing of unemployment claims and to pay claims that haven't been reviewed within 30 days. It says the state could recoup money later if the claims were incorrect or ineligible.
Democrats also called on state government to put a 60-day statewide moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, to use federal welfare and community development funds to pay emergency housing assistance, and to impose a statewide mask mandate.
Kemp has been touting Georgia's economy, saying Wednesday that the state “never shut down a lot of businesses” and “opened at the appropriate time.”
Georgia hot spots
Also, three Georgia counties appear among the top 20 hot spots for new COVID-19 cases over the past seven days, as compiled Wednesday by the New York Times.
Cases at Fort Benning are driving high virus numbers in Chattahoochee County, which is No. 3 in per capita rates among counties nationally in the past week, according to the Times’ list.
Clinch County, in South Georgia, is No. 12. It’s a county that has high levels of poverty and obesity. Health officials in that area link the jumps in new infections to many people not wearing masks or social distancing.
Bibb County, the home of Macon, is listed at 16th. Bibb has seen high numbers of positive tests, said Michael Hokanson, a Public Health spokesman for the health district.
“It’s a variety of things,” he said Wednesday. “More community spread. People not following [safety] guidelines. More testing.”