NOTE: As of April 18, the Georgia Department of Public Health releases its coronavirus reports once a week on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. The data on this page will follow those weekly updates.
This dashboard gives up-to-date counts for confirmed and probable cases, deaths and other key statewide measures for the novel coronavirus. (Sources: Georgia Department of Public Health, Georgia Emergency Management & Homeland Security Agency, Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis)
The dashboard may reflect a lag between confirmed and probable cases and confirmed deaths. So new confirmed cases reflect the spread of actual infections from a week or more ago.
Georgia DPH tracks confirmed cases (via molecular PCR tests) and probable cases (typically rapid antigen test positive cases), and the AJC has updated its dashboard to reflect both varieties of test.
We have added additional charts that present the data based on first reported symptom for confirmed cases or date of death, as reported by the state. The AJC also tracks hospitalization data, rates of spread by county and computes transmission estimates, which are explained in detail below.
Jump to a specific chart: Cases | Deaths | Hospitalizations | Tests | County Data | Transmission Rates | Vaccines
Q: What is the latest on confirmed and probable coronavirus cases in Georgia?
Note: The DPH made a data correction beginning on March 30 and over the next several days to clear a backlog of cases from a laboratory that were not previously recorded. The spike in two charts — “Total Confirmed Cases” chart and the “Percent testing positive for coronavirus in Georgia” — on those dates reflect this correction of older data and not a spike in daily cases.
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Q: What is the latest on coronavirus deaths in Georgia?
Q: What is the latest on people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Georgia?
A: This information is from May 2, 2020, through Jan. 11, 2023, when reporting by the Georgia Department of Emergency Management & Homeland Security Agency was discontinued. The information represents the number of people confirmed to have COVID-19 who were hospitalized on the reported date and does not include those hospitalized who remained under investigation for suspected COVID.
Q: How many Georgians are testing positive for Coronavirus?
Q: Does this week’s case data show how the virus is spreading right now in Georgia?
A: No. Epidemiologists agree that this week’s counts are a snapshot of what the virus did roughly two weeks ago. It can take a week or more for a person to become infected, show symptoms, get tested and have their results reported to public health officials. Deaths are generally reported to the state quickly, but it can take weeks for an infected person to succumb to the virus.
Q: What does the 7-day average line indicate?
A: This measure makes it easier to see trends in the spread of the virus that can be obscured by unrelated bumps and dips. For instance, Georgia’s daily case counts — when they were reported — tended to be lower on the weekends because reporting and testing slowed down, not because fewer people are getting sick.
Q: Where is coronavirus spreading now?
Q: Are there are other measures that can indicate how the virus is spreading?
A: Yes: the effective reproduction number, or Rt.
Rt is an epidemiological statistic that represents transmissibility, or the number of people a sick person infects at a given stage in the epidemic. If each person gets one person sick, the epidemic neither grows nor shrinks. Less than one means each person infects, on average, fewer than one person, so the epidemic shrinks. If Rt is larger than one, the epidemic grows. As Rt moves farther from 1, the epidemic shrinks or grows more rapidly.
The AJC calculated and compared several independent methods to estimate a value for Rt in Georgia. While the results from all were very similar, we're displaying a method designed by the Imperial College of London that uses epidemic curves to produce Rt estimates. The college's method is unrelated to its COVID-19 estimates.
As with other data presented on this dashboard, Rt values lag because of testing lags.
Q: What do we know about the allocation and distribution of vaccines in Georgia?
Do you have more questions? Email us at coronavirus@ajc.com.