NCDC Releases Second Report on COVID-19 Outbreak in Georgia
The National Center for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia (NCDC) has published the second report on COVID-19 spread in Georgia.
NCDC’s report tracks the progress – and the decline – of coronavirus, shedding new light on the size and scope of the outbreak.
Georgia reported its first case of infection on February 26. To date, confirmed cases has reached 893, while the death toll stands at 14. Total recoveries amount to 739.
COVID-19 patient profile
Georgia’s chief public health authority provided a breakdown of data collected from 800 patients treated for a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, among them 390 men (48.7%) and 410 women (51.2%).
Average age of patients – as well as median age – stood at 42. Most recorded cases – 51.5% out of 800 patients – fall into 30-59 age category.
According to the report, most common COVID-19 symptoms experienced by Georgian patients are fever, asthenia, cough, sore throat, and headache.
In the meantime, out of 800 coronavirus-positive patients, 88 cases were asymptomatic.
Most frequent underlying conditions were cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure (hypertension), diabetes, kidney and lung disease.
Average length of stay in a hospital – period from the day of admission to the day of discharge – amounted 22 days.
How contagious is the virus?
As of June 11, rate of cumulative incidence – measuring disease frequency during a given period of time in the population – hovered around 17.3 infected persons per 100,000 people.
Effective reproduction number, another key benchmark wielded by epidemiologists, equaled 3,88 after two weeks since the occurrence of first COVID-19 case in Georgia, and – remarkably – it dipped to 0.44 at the end of the reporting period.
To put it simply, a single infected individual is now likely to transmit COVID-19 to less than one person on average, hence the spread of the virus is certainly on the decline.
Mortality attributed to coronavirus is tiny in numbers – 13 deaths recorded (up to June 11), case fatality rate sitting at 1.57 %.
It comes as no surprise that COVID-19 had no bearing on excess mortality rate in Georgia (17,509 deaths in a period between January 1 and May 15, 2020, a 8 % decrease compared to the same period in 2019).
Taking stock of COVID-19 testing
From January 30 to June 11, 75,374 PCR tests were carried out in public health, clinical and commercial laboratories to diagnose COVID-19 infection – a bulk of them (35.5%) performed by NCDC’s Lugar lab.
As the graph attests, Georgia has significantly ramped up testing starting from mid-April, topping 1,469 tests performed daily in the second half of May.
As of June 11, test-positive rate – showing the ratio between who got tested for the virus and who tested positive for it – amounted to 1.2%.
NCDC estimated that frequency of infected patients among healthcare personnel is fluctuating within the range of 5-20%.
As stated in the report, NCDC’s epidemiologists have traced 4,500 close contacts of infected patients, who have been placed under quarantine or self-isolated.
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