Cobb COVID-19 deaths near 1,000; more than 200 in East Cobb

Cobb COVID deaths near 1,000 — *For more Cobb COVID data, **click here**: Source: Cobb and Douglas Public Health*

As of Friday afternoon there have been 940 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in Cobb County since the pandemic began in March 2020, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health, which also has listed 77 probable deaths in its latest daily status report.

As has been the case for most of the pandemic, the COVID-19 deaths have largely occurred in older people. Cobb and Douglas Public Health’s latest data shows that 42.2 percent of the deaths have been people 80 and older; 304. percent are between ages 70-79; and 14.5 percent are between 60-69.

There have been 217 COVID-19 deaths in East Cobb ZIP Codes, according to the latest CDPH data, but that’s not broken down by age:

30066: 4,316 cases; 57 deaths
30062: 4,535 cases; 56 deaths
30068: 2,489 cases; 64 deaths
30067: 3,643 cases; 36 deaths
Totals: 15,580 cases; 217 deaths

Dr. Janet Memark, director of Cobb and Douglas Public Health, said in an updated message on Friday that while case rates are going down in the county, the public must continue to be vigilant.

Georgia DPH data as of Friday indicated that the 14-day average of PCR tests per 100,000 people in Cobb is at 126, close to the definition of “high community spread” threshold of 100 cases per 100,000.

But as school students in Cobb returned to classes this week, she said there figures to be a bump in those and similar metrics.

The British variant B.1.1.7. makes up about 45 percent of Cobb’s cases, a doubling from the last couple of weeks, she said.

That variant, one of three that’s been discovered in Cobb, is more transmissable, and is affecting younger age groups (30-50 in Michigan, where there’s another COVID-19 wave taking place).

“It may not be as deadly,” she said, perhaps because it’s not significantly affecting older people, one of the primary groups to be vaccinated.

“We’re not done yet,” Memark said. “If you are not vaccinated, you are still at risk. We still cannot gather with large groups of people yet. You cannot be risking high-risk folks that can’t get vaccinated.

“We’ve got to keep wearing our masks when we go out in public because not everybody’s vaccinated.”

She said 17 percent of Cobb’s more than 760,000 residents have been fully vaccinated, meaning that 83 percent have not. To reach herd immunity, Memark said, “that number’s got to flip.”