Bulloch County continued to see a rapid rise in coronavirus infections, with 111 new cases confirmed Friday and a total of 685 COVID-19 diagnoses since Aug. 28.

In his daily report to the public, Bulloch County Public Safety/Emergency Management Agency Director Ted Wynn said Bulloch now has 2,299 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March. 

Wynn said East Georgia Regional Medical Center staff were caring for 23 patients Friday, which was a decrease of five patients in the past 24 hours, after spiking seven new patients Thursday. Six patients are on ventilators.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bulloch County has reported 124 hospitalizations and 22 deaths. Bulloch EMS has transported a total of 104 people with probable COVID-19 and 110 with confirmed cases, he said.

Bulloch County Schools reported Friday that there were 47 COVID-19 positive cases within its student and faculty body — public schools only — with 450 quarantined.  

Georgia Southern University, which only reports weekly, listed 487 cases, including both university-confirmed and self-reported, on the Statesboro GS campus this week among its students and faculty. The next report is expected to be released Monday.

At East Georgia State College, officials reported 18 cases, both confirmed and self-reported, on the Statesboro campus and 35 cases overall on its three campuses as of Friday.

Ogeechee Technical College is reporting cases weekly and had 12 confirmed cases as of Monday.

In Georgia, the state reported 2,132 new cases Friday. Georgia's total number of confirmed cases is 279,354. The state reported 65 deaths Friday, raising the death toll to 5,931.

As of Friday afternoon, 186,831 Americans have died from coronavirus, and the U.S. has recorded 6,173,300 confirmed cases, according to statistics from the New York Times.

Appointments for free COVID testing at the Specimen Point of Collection site at 1 W. Altman St. in Statesboro may be made by calling (855) 473-4374 or by visiting www.sehdph.org/covid-19/.