The first death for the month of February in Polk County was reported on the day as cases have slowly grown to start the second month of 2021.

Today’s death reported by the DPH included in the database was that of an 84-year-old white male with no co-morbidity factors involved. It marked the 18th of the year so far, and is the 62nd since tracking began with the first death last May.

Probable deaths remained the same at four through the opening of the month.

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

Georgia hit 3,500 cases today after a dip in new positives marked the end of January, which spilled over to the start of February. Monday’s 11 cases was followed by 15 on Tuesday, and 21 each for the midweek update and this afternoon.

Additionally, the much lower increases compared to the holiday spike saw the two-week average drop, now down to 14.4%. It did jump on Wednesday to 15.3%, but the overall rate remains at 16.1% after jumping back and forth a tenth of a percentage point over the past four days.

One number still steadily rising during the month of January and into this week is hospitalizations. Seven have been added over the past four days locally, per the DPH’s update each afternoon. That brought the overall total to 308 since tracking began.

Overall, Polk County has now reported somewhere around 21,604 PCR results from labs.

Antigen positives remain on a steady increase as well. Over the past four days, 30 new cases have been added to the tally, now at 1,371 since tracking began. There’s no percentage positive provided for that figure by the state in their daily report, so a number of how many tests have been conducted is not available.

Georgia’s new positives have been back on the rise to start the month. More than 2,500 were added on Monday, then a jump to 2,600+ on Tuesday, 3,800+ on Wednesday and now just over 4,000 new positives today.

The overall total now stands at 763,077 positives from PCR testing, with antigen positives now at 164,993 cases. Those figures have bounced back and forth over the past four days, as low as 600 on Monday and as up to 2,055 today in new cases added.

Hospitalizations and ICU admissions remain on a steady increase statewide. 51,247 patients have now been treated for COVID-19 since tracking began, an increase just today of 294. They jumped by 362 on Tuesday alone after having also settled down some at January’s end.

The number of ICU patients being admitted remains on a steady rise of around 27 Georgians per day. That overall figure stood at 8,511.

The rate of infection overall remains at 11.2% across the board for Georgia since tracking began. 6,561,635 PCR tests have been administered, and 449,321 antibody tests were reported by the DPH as of Thursday afternoon statewide.

Sadly, one figure that dipped and jumped again was deaths statewide.

Deaths went from 44 on Monday as a new latest low, then jumped on Tuesday to a near-record high of 162, and decreased to 136 on Wednesday. Today’s number of new deaths were at 141. More than 13,000 deaths – a milestone surpassed in today’s report – have been reported since tracking began for the virus in Georgia.

The national death toll per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is nearing 450,000, but today stood just below that figure at 449,020 that have been confirmed. It should at the current rate of increase surpass the figure by tomorrow.

New positives to start the week have slowed down in growth some. National tallies have remained at a steady increase, but instead of jumping daily by 200,000+ new cases, they instead are jumping more around the 100,000+ mark. The month of February began with 26,034,475, and today had reached 26,398,337.