ATLANTA — The new White House Coronavirus Task Force report, released Thursday morning, indicates that Georgia's death rate from COVID-19 remains among the worst in the nation.
Based on the federal data, the state appears to be lagging behind other states across the nation in a decrease in the numbers.
As compared to last week's data, Georgia still ranks within the top five in several significant categories, including national death ranking and hospital admissions.
The state ranks sixth highest in the nation for new cases per 100,000. This marks a significant increase over last week's report, when the state was 10th highest. Only New York, South Carolina, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and North Carolina have higher case ranking rates.
There's a slight improvement when it comes to test positivity, with Georgia rising to 10th in the nation. The state was ninth in the nation a week ago.
There is more dire data in place when it comes to hospital admissions of suspected and confirmed per 100 beds. In that instance, Georgia ranks third highest in the nation.
The reported data for this particular report has changed slightly. Previously, it indicated confirmed numbers; it now shows suspected and confirmed data.
In last week's report, Georgia ranked sixth highest in the nation in terms of hospitalizations. The only two locales with higher rankings than Georgia this week, are DC and Maryland.
The state also ranks third highest in the nation for deaths per 100,000 people across the nation. Comparatively, in the last report, Georgia ranked 11th highest.
This week's report cautions that national ranking data may be slightly skewed, with some data from several southern states, including Texas, being less complete, due to winter storms and widespread power outages in that part of the nation.