It looked like things might actually be slowing down for COVID-19 after the county numbers saw a big drop in recent days after posting record high daily totals.

That trend ended today when the Georgia Department of Public Health reported 14 new COVID-19 positives for Polk, and another 3,413 statewide.

Polk County’s total number of positives now stands at 431, just days after the tally had slowed down. Since July 4 alone, Polk County has added 207 new cases of COVID-19, another death and at least four new hospitalizations in the past two weeks alone.

For context purposes, it took from the time the first case was reported locally in March to nearly the end of June before Polk’s total number of infections for COVID-19 reached 206 positives on the daily count.

Fortunately, the number of hospitalized people stood at 20, and the number of deaths at 2 in today’s report.

Statewide, the increase of the new 3,400+ cases put the total since tracking began at 148,988 people who have been found to have the virus. Out of that total, 15,494 people have needed hospital treatment for the virus, an increase in the past 24 hours of a new 447 patients. The total number of intensive care patients now stands at 2,904 admissions.

Sadly, 78 new deaths were reported in Georgia from the virus since the start of the week. That put the overall death toll at 3,254.

Around the area, Bartow County’s number increased again to 1,172 total positives for the virus, with 176 people who have required hospital treatment ant 49 deaths. In Paulding, they are closing in again on their neighbor to the north, with 1,080 cases in total now reported by the Georgia Department of Public Health, along with 113 hospitalizations and 17 deaths in total.

Floyd County to the north now has 889 positives in total, but remained at 61 people hospitalized and 15 deaths since tracking began in late February. Haralson County grew to 136 cases, and remained at 18 hospitalizations and six deaths in the daily count.

Nationwide, COVID-19’s toll on a daily basis wasn’t as bad as it has been, but remained high. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention posted 57,777 new cases for their July 21 report, bringing the nationwide infections to 3,819,139 people who have been found to have the virus. Another 473 people died across the country, bringing the death toll to 140,630 people.