At the end of May, Director of the Bulloch Public Safety/Emergency Management Agency Ted Wynn discontinued issuing daily local updates about the pandemic after case numbers dwindled to only a few per day. But after switching to a weekly update, the summer surge of COVID cases caused Wynn to resume his daily updates in August.
Now, with new cases once again down to a few per day, Wynn said Monday he was going to go back to reporting Bulloch County information once a week.
“I certainly hope I will not have to resume daily reports again,” Wynn said. “Frankly, I look forward to discontinuing the reports all together.”
Last week, the Georgia Department of Public Health revised the total number of cases in Bulloch County since the pandemic began downward from 7,883 cases to 7,851. An email from the Department of Health indicated the case data had been reviewed and resulted in the lower number. Prior to the adjustment, Bulloch was averaging about four new cases per day.
In his last daily report in May, Wynn reported there was one reported new COVID case that day and one COVID patient was hospitalized at East Georgia Regional Medical Center. When the daily reports resumed on Aug. 10, 42 COVID patients were at East Georgia, including 12 on ventilators, and new COVID cases had shot up to about 30 per day.
On Aug. 26, at the height of the summer surge, 73 COVID patients were hospitalized at East Georgia Regional and the county was coming off a two-week stretch that saw 1,030 new COVID cases reported.
And even though Wynn is discontinuing his daily reports, he urges residents “to please reconsider and get vaccinated if you are not, get a booster if you are eligible, and be sensible about gathering indoors with large crowds by thinking about wearing a mask.”
Georgia Southern
New cases reported at Georgia Southern University have dropped for seven consecutive weeks.
Confirmed and self-reported cases at Georgia Southern have fallen from 434 across its three campuses the week of Aug. 16–22, to 16 for the most recent week — Oct. 4-10. Of the total number, 11 were on the Statesboro campus, two fewer than the previous week. There were 389 cases reported on the Statesboro campus for Aug. 16–22.
Bulloch County Schools
Similar to Georgia Southern, reported cases at Bulloch County schools have dropped from 474 for the week of Aug. 15–21 to eight for Oct. 3-9. Only seven schools reported any cases at all last week and only one school had more than one new case.
Local hospitalizations
Wynn said East Georgia Regional Medical Center has 11 patients hospitalized with COVID and five on ventilators on Monday. That is down from 17 patients with 11 on ventilators from the previous Monday.