The death toll from COVID once again rose locally at midweek, and the number of positives surpassed the 3,700 mark with an increase of a new 14 positives on Wednesday afternoon, according to the latest state update of figures.

An 82-year-old white female with co-morbidity factors listed as a contributing factor in her death was the latest victim reported by the Georgia Department of Public Health from COVID-19 in Polk.

That brought the total to 71 overall since the first death was reported in May 2020, and the number since the beginning of the year at 27.

Here’s the full list of COVID-19 deaths in 2021 so far.



COVID-19 has thus far been found through PCR increased to 3,701 on Wednesday afternoon, but the overall figure remains much higher when also calculating in the number of antigen positives, or cases found after someone contracted COVID-19 and were found to have antibodies in their system for the virus.

Those two figures combined in total put the number of cases at 5,172.

As of Wednesday, the total number of antigen cases stood at 1,471 – up by 12 day-to-day, and in recent days one of the largest increase seen in Polk County for new antigen positives. They have been increasing by single digits through much of the month of February after the holiday spike of cases.

Numbers have decreased in the two-week average, down another fourth-tenths of a percentage point to 8.4% at midweek, still trending downward from a high of 32.6% in mid-January. The overall percentage of positives still remains at 16% in total. Those figures are only for PCR testing, which tracks new infections found through testing for live cases of the virus in individuals.

One number that didn’t go up for only the fourth time this month were new hospitalizations. Those remained at 343 in total, and at 41 for the month of February.

Statewide, numbers were up by another 2,000+ new PCR positives, and 1,300+ antigen positives. That put the number of PCR cases at 810,473 in total since tracking began last year, and 183,588 antigen cases. Both combined, more than 990,000 Georgians have tested positive for the virus in one form or another. 11.1% of tests have come back positive out of the more than 7 million PCR tests conducted statewide since last year. 15.5% of the antigen tests have come back positive as well.

The number of hospitalizations remains above 200+ added at midweek (227) to bring that total to 55,394 patients treated in Georgia for COVID-19. Of that figure, 8,999 have been treated in intensive care units.

Sadly, 14,882 Georgians in total have perished from the virus or COVID worsening other conditions that contributed to their death. That was a daily increase of a new 121 deaths on Wednesday added to the state’s tally.



Nationally, the CDC’s figures finally have caught up with other organizations and reached the 28 million case mark on Wednesday. Their official confirmed case count is now 28,065,327, with 501,181 deaths reported since tracking began in January 2020.

The CDC also reported that 66,464,947 doses of the vaccine have been administered so far around the United States, with 20,607,261 people now having received the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.

Locally, only 5,301 people have received a vaccine dose so far, and 1,751 of those people have received the second dose.



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