After dropping under double-digit new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, Bulloch County saw a bump of 31 cases Wednesday, but Public Safety/Emergency Management Agency Director Ted Wynn said he remains hopeful Bulloch will begin a trend of dwindling coronavirus cases.
Despite the jump in cases from nine on Tuesday to 31 on Wednesday, Wynn said the increase was still much better than the 61 new COVID cases per day Bulloch has averaged since Aug. 28.
With the 31 cases on Wednesday, Bulloch now has 2,699 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March.
Wynn said East Georgia Regional Medical Center staff were caring for 22 patients Wednesday. Nine 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.
Bulloch County Schools
Meanwhile, after reporting a reduction in the total number of students and school system employees under quarantine for two days in a row, Bulloch County Schools saw a jump Wednesday.
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. On Wednesday, the quarantine number was up to 227. Also on Wednesday, the school system reported six additional positive COVID-19 cases, for a total of 73 cases since Aug. 17.
Georgia Southern
Georgia Southern University 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 is on the Hinesville campus.
At East Georgia State College, officials reported 28 cases, both confirmed and self-reported, on the Statesboro campus and 66 cases overall on its three campuses as of Wednesday.
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 Wednesday, Georgia reported 2,265 new COVID cases, raising the state’s total number of confirmed cases to 299,056. The state reported 24 deaths on Wednesday, raising the death toll to 6,419.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 196,436 Americans had died from coronavirus, and the U.S. had recorded 6,616,458 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/.