With 84 new cases reported Monday, Bulloch County now has more than 2,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March. The number has jumped significantly in the past four days, with 393 cases reported since Thursday, and local leaders will address the alarming rise at a news conference Tuesday.
Prior to Friday, Bulloch had not recorded a single day of more than 80 cases, but the county has had more than 80 new cases in three of the past four days, including its single-day record of 133 cases on Friday. The four-day total of 393 cases is by far Bulloch's highest total for a 96-hour time frame since the first COVID-19 case was reported on March 27. The previous highest four-day total for Bulloch was July 1–4, when 144 new cases were reported.
Bulloch County Public Safety/Emergency Management Agency Director Ted Wynn said that "the only thing that has changed" in the community is the return of college and university students, and grade school classes starting, both on Aug. 17.
The university is "doing all they can" to compel students to comply with mandates and preventive measures, he said.
"Let's just hope they (students) listen."
In Georgia Southern's coronavirus report released Monday, the university lists 548 students and faculty on the Statesboro campus with either confirmed or self-reporting positive coronavirus cases.
In response to the rapid increase, the city of Statesboro will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday "to provide an update on the recent increase in positive COVID-19 cases in Bulloch County," Public Information Officer Layne Phillips said in an email release Monday afternoon.
"The purpose of the conference is to address community concerns and provide media with known facts," Phillips wrote.
She said the conference will include remarks from Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar and Bulloch County Board of Commissioners Chairman Roy Thompson, and Wynn will be available to take questions.
The 84 new cases reported Monday bring the total number of confirmed cases in Bulloch to 2,003 since the start of the pandemic. In his daily report to the public, Wynn said East Georgia Regional Medical Center staff were caring for 21 patients Monday, six of whom were on ventilators.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bulloch County has reported 113 hospitalizations and 21 deaths. Bulloch County EMS has transported a total of 103 people with probable COVID-19 and 97 with confirmed cases, he said.
In Georgia, the state reported 1,523 new cases Monday, the second day in a row the state was below 2,000 new daily cases. Prior to Sunday, Georgia had reported more than 2,000 cases every day since June 30. Also, the cases Sunday were more than 1,000 less than were reported on Saturday. Georgia's total number of confirmed cases is 270,471. The state reported 28 deaths Monday, raising the death toll to 5,632.
As of Monday afternoon, 183,399 Americans had died from coronavirus, and the U.S. had recorded 6,021,465 confirmed cases, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.