The numbers continue to bounce around for COViD-19 in Polk County, with cases going back up day-to-day to end the week, but coming back down to start the weekend alongside two new deaths from the virus reported by the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Alongside those two deaths, a continued pattern of one issue is popping up in the state database: some new deaths are being added into the listings over the past weeks, but not all the deaths are being included in the list that is actually decreasing in the amount of information available in previous weeks. Comparing the two portions of the database, 11 deaths that have been reported in Polk County are not listed as of this publication.

Here’s what the data looks like when searching the Department of Public Health website:

Here’s the full list of deaths from COVID-19 in Polk County since the beginning of the year.

That brings the total number of deaths to 59 locally, 15 reported since the beginning of the New Year. In Friday reporting, a four-day run of new deaths being reported daily was broken, but started fresh again.

Because the state database of reported deaths with only minimal non-identifying biographical information is incomplete, the only death known for sure added today is that of an 82-year-old white female with no co-morbidity factors.

The other death did not have any immediate information shared in the DPH’s update based on tracking here at Polk.Today since last year.

An increase in new hospitalizations over the past days have also continued, with two more patients added to the state’s information on Friday, and another seven added today. That brings the total to 287 since tracking began. The data puts the number on the month and year so far for 2021 and 66 people hospitalized, 22% of the total just this month alone.

The holiday spike in COVID numbers saw an increase in new daily cases added again on Friday at 44, but then went back down again today to a daily increase of 20. Combined, that’s 66 new cases over the past two days, and brought the total for January so far to 699 new PCR positives locally.

In total, there are 3,298 cases of COVID-19 in the community. At this rate, Polk County could potentially add 1,000 cases in total for January if the rate of new additions continues.

Antigen positives rose again as well, by 24 over the past two days and now sits at 1,252 since tracking began.

One good figure that is overall trending downward after a new high: the two-week average of new positives. That went from 23.5% on Thursday to 22.1% today, dropping more than a percentage point on Friday and another percentage point today.

Statewide figures continue to go up for new cases as well. Those rose by more than 6,500 positives on Friday, and 6,600 positives on Saturday to bring the overall total of PCR positives to 714,322, plus the nearly 5,000 new antibody-positive cases that brings that total to 147,836 since those cases were added to the database.

Georgia’s hospitalizations and new ICU cases, along with deaths, went up over the past two days.

As of Saturday afternoon, another 590 people were admitted to statewide medical facilities since Thursday afternoon’s report. There were another 91 people were admitted to intensive care units for the virus. That brought those totals so far to 48,270 hospitalizations and 8,183 ICU patients.

Sadly, 290 people have died since Thursday’s report, bringing the Saturday afternoon total to 11,798 Georgians who have perished from COVID-19 or related causes.

COVID-19 has now been found in 24,704,417 Americans since January 21, 2020. That was an increase today alone of another 191,799 confirmed cases of the virus on the day per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The death toll from the virus across the country now tops 412,592, a jump of another 3,895 on the day.