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COVID-19 hospitalizations top a thousand
For the first time since May, the Georgia Department of Public Health reports more than a thousand patients are in hospitals across the state with COVID-19, a number increasing since the Fourth of July weekend.
ATLANTA - New daily COVID-19 cases and current hospitalizations in Georgia have remained in the triple digits for almost two and a half months. That changed on Wednesday.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, 1,209 new positive COVID-19 PCR tests and another 1,020 positive antigen tests in the past 24 hours, numbers not seen since the end of April.
Current hospitalizations also climbed to 1,005, the GDPH said, a number that stayed below a thousand since the second week of May.
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The numbers have been on a slow increase following the Fourth of July holiday.
Federal health officials attribute the increase to low vaccination rates and a rise in the Delta variant that now accounts for about 83% of COVID-19 cases in the United States. The percentage is a dramatic increase from the week of July 3, when the highly transmissible variant accounted for about 50% of genetically sequenced coronavirus cases.
Only about 42% of Georgians have been fully vaccinated, the GDPH says.
State health officials say there have been a total of 1,153,064 combined positive PCR and antigen tests since the pandemic began, averaging out to about 1 in 9 Georgians.
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Why social distancing can save lives amid COVID-19 pandemic
Social distancing is not only about preventing the illness itself, but rather, slowing the rate at which people get sick.
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There has been a total of 66,175 hospital patients with about 1 in 6 of those patients ended up in the ICU and 21,593 confirmed and suspected deaths from the virus, health officials say.
Health officials are urgently asking everyone who has not gotten one of the vaccines to talk to their health care provider and strongly consider getting one.
To find out more on the vaccine as well as where to get get it, click here.
SEE ALSO: Atlanta man contracts COVID-19 breakthrough infection months after being vaccinated
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