The death toll early in the year from COVID-19 rose again for a fourth day in Polk County, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health’s afternoon update.

This time, the statewide health agency’s data update included the death of a 59-year-old white female with co-morbidity factors listed. Her passing put the overall death toll at 52 since the first fatality from the virus was reported last May, and 8 on the New Year and for the month of January.

That total has not yet included the death of Rockmart City Manager Jeff Ellis, who will be at least the 53rd death reported from the virus when his information is folded into the state data. Currently, there are three 67-year-olds (a white male, a male listed with ethnicity as other, and a white female) who died in 2020 from the virus.

Here’s the full list of all eight people who have died from COVID-19 in 2021 so far.

Along with the increase in the death rate locally from the virus again, another 45 people were positive for the virus and bumped the figure overall up to 3,121 cases of COVID-19 locally since tracking began last March. Additionally, the number of hospitalizations rose again on the day with a new patient added, bringing the total up to 265 since tracking began and 44 over the past two full weeks of the New Year.

Today’s increase in cases put the overall rate up again locally for the day to 16.1%, an increase from Friday’s figure by a tenth of a percentage point. The two-week average did come down again despite the jump in new positives to 29.5%. Polk County remains the county with the highest two-week average at the moment in Northwest Georgia.

It isn’t the highest in the state, but pretty close to it. Warren County at a 36.8% two-week average of new positives tops that figure as of Saturday afternoon’s update.

With the data available from the state, Polk County’s overall number of tests administered since tracking began now sits at 19,385.

That data doesn’t include antigen positives, with those numbers in Polk now at 1,137 – a jump of a new 16 cases in that category of tracking.

Locally, no increase was seen in the number of probable deaths, which remained at two.

Statewide data continues to jump amid a hard opening to 2021 in terms of COVID-19. The cases in both PCR and antigen positives went up again, this time 6,952 and 1,885 respectively. That put the totals at 674,994 total PCR cases, and an additional 134,669 antigen positives in total since tracking began last year.

Georgia’s overall rate of positives remained at 10.8% for the third day in a row out of more than 5.8 million PCR tests conducted, and more than 400,000 antibody tests conducted.

Sadly, the state’s number of deaths and hospitalizations continued to rise as well.

The number of deaths went up past 11,000 overall in Georgia, to 11,029 in total with an increase of another 154 on the day – nearly at Friday’s record-breaking day and the second highest figure so far in January and the New Year. The national figure rose by another 3,683 to land at 390,938. At this rate, the nation should officially hit the 400,000 death mark by no later than this coming Friday, if not sooner.

Georgia’s number of probable deaths rose by another two statewide to 1,262 people who have possibly perished from the virus, but officials weren’t able to definitely declare so.

Saturday’s total of hospitalizations stood at 307 added on in the afternoon report, up to 46,515 people treated since tracking began last year. That includes 7,954 intensive care admissions, up by another 35 on the day.

Nationally, the number of COVID positives rose by another 247,071 on the day according to figures from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, bringing the overall total up to 23,440,774.