Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that three additional cases of Coronavirus have been confirmed in Georgia, including the first in Cobb County.
The governor’s office sent out a news release Saturday morning saying that the state’s confirmed cases now total five, following the first two confirmations earlier this week.
According to Saturday’s release, the Cobb County patient was diagnosed after returning from a trip to Italy, and is in isolation at home.
Another new case concerns an individual who is hospitalized, with an unclear source of exposure.
Those two individuals were tested by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
State officials also are awaiting further results from a possible positive test for Coronavirus, or COVID-19, in Gwinnett County. The Georgia Department of Public Health also confirmed it tested an individual diagnosed with Coronavirus in Floyd County, and that patient also is in the hospital, according to Saturday’s release.
The release (you can read it here) did not indicate how many individuals have been tested in Georgia. It did state that “the overall risk of COVID-19 to the general public remains low and there is no evidence of community spread of COVID-19 in Georgia at this time.”
Coronavirus is a highly contagious viral disease that originated in Wuhan, China and was first identified in December.
Since then, it’s spread across the globe to more than 80 countries, with more than 100,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths.
Most of those have been in China, but South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy also have been inundated with cases and fatalities.
As of Saturday morning, 17 deaths have occurred in the United States, including two in Florida. Those were the first deaths in the Eastern U.S.; the majority of deaths and cases has been in the Seattle area.
The Cobb and Gwinnett cases were like the first Georgia cases, following travel to Italy. Nearly 200 people have died in Italy from Coronavirus, including nearly 50 in a 24-hour period, and there are nearly 5,000 confirmed cases there.
On Friday, President Donald Trump visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, after initially cancelling the trip.
Here’s more from the CDC about Coronavirus, with information about those at higher risk, symptoms, prevention and treatment.
The Cobb County School District has updated its guidance for Coronavirus.
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