Every county in metro Atlanta is now under the “high” community level of COVID-19 case transmission Friday morning.
That’s according to the latest data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which was released on Thursday. State officials attribute the rise in COVID-19 cases on the new BA.5 variant going around. “Now what we’re seeing is that it actually is around 60%, and if you look at that relative to just a few weeks ago, that’s a huge jump,” Georgia state epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek told Channel 2′s Richard Elliot earlier this week.
The Georgia Department of Public Health updates their numbers currently just once a week on Wednesday.
This week’s data showed COVID-19 cases are up 24%, rising from 15,394 cases to 19,097 cases this week over last week.
Still, the rate of hospitalizations remains relatively low. There are just over 1,200 COVID-19 patients in Georgia hospitals, according to the GDOH. That represents just 7.5% of hospitalized patients.
During the peak of the Delta variant in September 2021, more than 6,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
Of those people hospitalized last week with the virus, 440 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, 135 had only gotten one dose of the vaccine and 155 were fully vaccinated and boosted.
These are the recommendations from the CDC when your county is in the high level:
- Wear a mask indoors in public and on public transportation.
- Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. Get tested if you have symptoms.
- If you are at high risk for severe illness, consider taking additional precautions.
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