ATLANTA (AP) – Gov. Brian Kemp is touting “great progress” in easing Georgia’s COVID-19 epidemic, with newly reported cases and the number of hospitalized patients falling to levels last seen in June. But some numbers could look different in coming days as Georgia begins daily publication of results of rapid antigen tests, and the state remains on track, at least for now, to record 10,000 deaths this year from the respiratory illness.
The Republican governor spoke Wednesday to reporters at the Capitol, urging people to keep up their vigilance against infections, which have been confirmed in nearly 325,000 patients in the state.
“We’ve been able to keep businesses open, most kids have been able to return to schools, and people have been able to go about their lives, in a smart responsible way. But that is only sustainable if we continue to do our part moving forward,” Kemp said.
Kemp has pushed a largely voluntary approach that has allowed businesses to open and eschewed a statewide mask mandate, despite intense criticism of those stances during the summer, when Georgia was recording the highest per capita number of new infections nationwide. The state is now 28th in new cases per capita in the past 14 days, according to figures kept by The Associated Press, but is still recording twice as many cases as it was at a low point in May.
Georgia is running about 1,200 new cases per day, but that doesn’t include rapid antigen tests that have been growing in popularity. Because those tests are not as reliable as the molecular tests, Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey says the department will not count positives from antigen tests as confirmed cases. But it is counting them as probable cases, alongside cases where someone is known to be exposed and develops symptoms but never is tested and cases where a death certificate lists COVID-19 as a cause of death or contributor to death.