Some nine new positives for COVID-19 were reported locally on the day as the virus continues to make its way through the community, per the Department of Public Health’s latest information provided on Tuesday afternoon

Along with another day of single-digit increases, another two hospital patients have been admitted to area medical centers as well bringing the overall total to 88.

The number of case now sit at 1,348 overall positives for Polk County as of Tuesday, September 15.

One fortunate marker in the data for the day was the local number of deaths, remaining at 17. The Tuesday data marked the 11th day in a row without a death in Polk County.

The county’s data also included another decrease in the two-week percentage of positive tests, down to 8.4% on the day. The overall rate remained at 14.1% for Polk County.

Georgia’s number of deaths went up again, but the numbers have been trending downward on the whole through the month of September so far. Sadly, another 48 people were reported to have died due to the virus or previous problems that were worsened by the virus’ symptoms. Statewide, the total number of deaths now stood at 6,398.

Overall, Georgia has 296,833 positives with an increase on the day of 1,571. The state remained at a 10.3% positive rate, and remained above 2.9 million tests conducted overall.

Another 271 people were admitted to medical centers around the state, bringing the overall number of patients hospitalized to 26,665. Georgia’s hospitals have treated 4,870 people out of that figure, an increase of another 40 on the day.

Nationally, some 6,537,627 cases of COVID-19 have been reported to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed as of September 14, with 194,032 deaths reported across the country.

An additional bit of information that is now available is a breakdown on a county level of how youth have been impacted by COVID-19.

The Department of Public Health’s breakdown of cases for children, teens and college-aged young adults split the figures up in age ranges that allow a better picture of how the cases are trending based on certain groups. The surveillance report provided by the DPH is dated as of Friday, September 11, and cited the number of cases in four groups ranging from infants and toddlers, K-12 students, college students and those who are 23 and up.

The majority of Polk County’s cases are in the last category as of Sept. 11, 936 of the total number of positives are those 23 and up. As of last Friday, 120 of the cases had been reported in the past two weeks.

The school-aged youth who have tested positive were at 160 in total, 21 of the cases reported in the two weeks prior to last Friday. Superintendent Laurie Atkins added that 17 of those cases were students in the Polk School District during the opening weeks of September.

College-aged young adults have accounted for 145 of the total cases, 13 in the past two weeks and children from 0-4 have accounted for just 22 cases in total, and three in the past two weeks as of Sept. 11.