Vaccinations climb upward

By Tom Law
The Toccoa Record
    The number of Stephens County residents who have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine ticked above the 17,000 mark this week.
    A total of 17,158 local residents have received one dose of the vaccine, 66 percent of the county’s total population of 26,000.
    According to the state Department of Public Health, as of Tuesday morning, 8,184 Stephens Countians have received both doses of the vaccine and are fully protected against the virus.
    That represents 31.5 percent of the county’s total population.
    While the number of vaccines continue to rise here, so does the number of COVID-19 cases fueled by the spread of the more contagious delta variant of the virus.
    According to the state health department, there have been 39 new cases in Stephens County over the last two weeks.
    That’s up from 19 new cases reported in the previous two weeks.
    There have been no deaths from the virus over the last four weeks. The Stephens death toll from COVID-19 is 80 dating back to the start of the pandemic in March of 2020.
    Statewide, the COVID surge is considerable.
    The state health department there were 4,387 new cases in Georgia on Monday alone.
    There were 21 COVID-related deaths reported on that day and 151 hospitalizations.
    The positive test rate for COVID statewide is 9.5 percent. Stephens County’s positive test rate is 19.6 percent, up from 11.3 percent from a week ago.
    Also, statewide some 4.2 million Georgians have been fully vaccinated, about 40 percent of the population. A total of 8.9 million Georgians have received at least one dose of the vaccine.