ATLANTA — The latest White House Coronavirus Task Force report shows that Georgia is seeing steady improvement in many respects from the worst of the winter surge, but that the state's outbreak remains one of the worst in the country.
The good news for Georgia is that, by White House data, nearly every key metric fell compared to a week ago. New cases per 100,000 residents fell 28%, test positivity fell 2.1%, new hospital admissions fell 17% and deaths per 100,00 residents fell 6%.
The bad news is that even with these gains, Georgia still ranks worse than the majority of other states in these categories.
The state still ranks 10th in most new cases per 100,000 residents, ninth in highest test positivity, sixth in most new hospital admissions and 11 in most new deaths per 100,000 residents.
By state data, new cases have fallen considerably from their mid-January peaks, but still remain roughly equivalent to the peak of last summer's initial surge. Deaths have fallen slightly in the last two weeks, but remain well above at where they've been at any pervious point in the pandemic.
The drops coincide with the state's vaccine distribution efforts stepping up and beginning to realize better results. Georgia has now administered nearly 1.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, out of an allocation of about 1.8 million.
The White House Task Force report, which was dated to Feb. 7, said Georgia has given 8.6% of its population a first dose of the vaccine, and 2% have already had two doses.