Polk County’s COVID-19 cases continue to increase by the day, and so far in August it seems by double digits as the Georgia Department of Public Health released the latest numbers this afternoon and reported new positives and a new hospital case here in Polk County.

The 22 new cases reported this afternoon brings the overall tally in Polk County to 765, and the hospital patients to 38 as the first full week of August came to a close. That brings the number of new cases this month alone to 101 new positives – in just seven days. That’s also a rate of a new hospital case per day, which has yet to be seen in Polk County over the past six months of tracking.

The county’s death toll remained at 11 as COVID-19 statewide accounted for the loss of an additional 92 people across the state to bring the full figure to 4,117 deaths since tracking began. The DPH reported another 4,177 new cases reported in the past 24 hours, to bring the total number of positives to 209,004 people who have tested and been found with COVID-19 out of 1,753,129 tests administered, and counting. That’s an infection rate of 11% according to DPH, and 9% of the people who have tested positive have needed hospitalization.

That’s up to 20,282 as of this afternoon’s report, an increase of another 280 patients who needed treatment in a medical center for the virus. 3,700 people in total have needed intensive care for symptoms caused by COVID-19.

Nationwide, another 56,105 people have tested positive and have been confirmed according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as of August 6. That put the total on a climb toward 5 million in the coming days at this rate, probably by Tuesday, August 11 with the overall total now at 4,858,596 positive tests returned. The CDC has not yet put out a figure for how many total tests have been administered in that time.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of another 1,256 people in the past day, bringing that total to 158,887 deaths since tracking began.