ATLANTA — There's some good news and some bad news with the latest report from the White House coronavirus team.
The report, dated from Feb. 28, shows some modest weekly progress in Georgia's fight against COVID. Georgia has dropped in the rankings of states with the highest test positivity, hospitalizations and death rates. The state is also holding steady in sixth place for the rate of new cases per 100,000 people.
But, taken as a whole, Georgia still ranks among the top 10 states for the rate of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
New cases
According to the data, Georgia is sixth-highest in the nation for new cases per 100,000 people. That's no change from the last report, but that's down from the tenth-highest the report before that. That means the state hasn't budged since last week's report and the number of new cases, compared to the rest of the United States, remains steady.
Hospitalizations
In the latest report, Georgia ranks seventh-highest for hospital admissions per 100 beds. That's a significant drop from the last report, in which the state ranked third-highest. In the report before that, Georgia was sixth-highest, showing some fluctuation.
Deaths
Georgia's death rates have remained stubbornly high, and this week, the state ranks seventh-highest for deaths per 100,000. In the previous two reports, the state ranked third-highest and eleventh-highest before that. While this does show slight improvement, that rate is still within the top 10 states for deaths.
Test positivity
The only COVID metric for which Georgia did not rank within the top 10 was for test positivity, but it's still not at a level that the state should laud.
For the latest report, Georgia ranked twelfth-highest for test positivity, missing the top 10 by two.
In the last report, Georgia was the tenth-highest for the rate, and in the report before that, the state was ninth-highest. What does this means? Despite not budging in new cases category, Georgia's test positivity is improving very slightly.