Bulloch County Public Safety/Emergency Management Agency Director Ted Wynn said he hopes Tuesday’s number of new positive COVID-19 cases – nine – starts a trend of dwindling coronavirus cases in Bulloch.
After recording 1,045 cases since Aug. 28, an average of 61 new COVID cases per day, Bulloch County dipped below double digits in new cases for the first time since Aug. 23, when only five were reported.
Georgia Southern University also has seen a big drop in cases the past three weeks. The school reported 508 cases for the week of Aug. 24-30, 363 for Aug. 31-Sept. 6, and 95 new coronavirus cases on Monday for Sept. 7-13. That number represents an 81% drop from the cases reported Aug. 31.
The cases are separated by Georgia Southern into two categories, university confirmed and self-reported, and now total 1,037 — 730 self-reported and 307 university confirmed — since the university resumed in-person classes on Aug. 17. Of the 1,037 cases, 989 are on the Statesboro campus, 47 are on the Armstrong campus and one on the Hinesville campus.
Bulloch County Schools
In its daily report, Bulloch County Schools reported a reduction in the total number of students and school system employees under quarantine for the second day in a row.
On Friday, Bulloch County reported 566 students and employees under quarantine, but on Monday that reported number dropped to 242 and on Tuesday, the quarantine number was down to 174. Also on Tuesday, the school system reported one additional positive COVID-19 case for a total of 67 cases since Aug. 17.
Bulloch County
Bulloch added nine cases on Tuesday and now has 2,668 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March.
Wynn said East Georgia Regional Medical Center staff were caring for 21 patients Tuesday. Eight patients are on ventilators.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bulloch County has reported 126 hospitalizations and 24 deaths. Bulloch EMS has transported a total of 113 people with probable COVID-19 and 118 with confirmed cases, he said.
At East Georgia State College, officials reported 28 cases, both confirmed and self-reported, on the Statesboro campus and 65 cases overall on its three campuses as of Tuesday.
Ogeechee Technical College is reporting cases weekly and had 24 confirmed cases as of Monday — 20 students and four employees, all on the Bulloch County campus.
On Tuesday, Georgia reported 1,571 new COVID cases, raising the state’s total number of confirmed cases to 296,833. The state reported 48 deaths on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 6,398.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 195,386 Americans have died from coronavirus, and the U.S. has recorded 6,590,827 confirmed cases, according to statistics from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Testing
Statesboro’s city government and the Bulloch County government have partnered with East Georgia Healthcare Center to offer free COVID-19 testing two mornings each week at Luetta Moore Park. Testing will take place Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:30-11:30 a.m., at Luetta Moore Park, 121 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
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/.