New Year, new record for reported COVID-19 cases in a single day
ATLANTA - The Georgia Department of Public Health, for the second day in a row, has added a record number of confirmed coronavirus cases, making it the biggest single-day reporting since the start of the pandemic.
More than 8,700 new confirmed cases were added to the state's total on Friday afternoon, according to the GDPH. It is the second day the number of reported cases in a single day has exceeded 8,000 cases. However, two days doesn't necessarily indicate a trend as the state reports the cases as they receive data from labs. Averaging out the new cases over the last two weeks, it shows a growth of 5,366 per day. That's about a 17.5 percent increase in the rate of cases from Dec. 18. or a 55.5 percent increase in the rate since a month ago.
As of Friday afternoon, the GDPH reports a total of 575,395 confirmed coronavirus cases in Georgia since the start of the pandemic. That number does not include the 102,194 cases confirmed by antigen tests, commonly called rapid COVID tests. Georgia health officials reported 2,742 new cases confirmed through that method.
WATCH: FOX 5 Atlanta live news coverage
_____
Sign up for FOX 5 email alerts
Download the FOX 5 Atlanta app for breaking news and weather alerts.
_____
Hospitals still remain at or near capacity, but the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized did decrease by 15 people to 4,563, health officials reported. The rate is about three times higher than the average a month ago.
State officials reported 17 more deaths from COVID-19. The state reports 9,889 confirmed and 1,069 probably deaths. That averages out to be about 35 confirmed deaths per day for the last two weeks, according to data provided by the GDPH. That rate is about 30 percent higher than a month ago.
The U.S. surpassed 20 million cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
RELATED: CoronavirusNOW.com, FOX's national hub for COVID-19 news and updates.
Know how the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting Georgia
_____