More sad news from the Georgia Department of Public Health as the number of deaths increased by two more in Polk County, and the number of hospital patients went up by another four according to the agency’s afternoon report.

They reported that an 85-year-old male with comorbidity factors and a 79-year-old man who was listed as unknown in the same factors died in the past day from COVID-19. That brought the overall tally to 15 deaths in the county as of August 27 and marked the ninth death of the month due to COVID-19 according to DPH data released daily.

With the increase of four new hospital patients today, that brought the overall total to 68 and marked the 37th patient admitted for treatment, more than half of the total number of patients who have been admitted to area medical centers for treatment of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

Locally, the total number of cases on the day increased by another 15 to land at 1,168, bringing the overall total past 500 for the month of August alone.

If the trend continues in the double digit increases, Polk County should have 1,200 positives in total since tracking began by September 1 if not before.

Statewide, Georgia’s increase in COVID-19 cases continues to go up by thousands. The daily increase went up in the past 24 hours by another 2,550 to bring the overall total to 263,074, which is out of more than 2.5 million tests conducted since tracking began back in February.

Hospitalizations on a daily basis have been trending back downward in recent days despite increases in numbers locally on the state level, with only 188 added in the past 24 hours to bring the total to 24,127.

Two of the 86 deaths reported across the state came from Polk County, per the DPH figures for August 27. That brought the overall death toll to 5,393.

Nationwide, some 1,239 new deaths were reported as of August 26, bringing the overall tally to 178,998 people who have perished since tracking began of COVID-19. 46,393 new cases were added in that time as well according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, bringing the overall tally to 5,799,046 as of midweek.