The Thursday evening edition of the online Atlanta Journal Constitution published news of the first death of a Georgia child, an 11-year-old boy from DeKalb County (part of Metro Atlanta area). Case, hospitalization, and death counts are published by the Georgia Department of Health at noon and 7:00 PM daily. I immediately checked the DPH website to confirm the heartbreaking announcement. It would be the second child in the state with a confirmed coronavirus test; this one died, the other child lived. Scrolling down the ever-lengthening list of names, I affirmed the news story.
8:30 p.m.: An 11-year-old DeKalb County boy died Thursday from the coronavirus, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. Alexis Stevens reports he is the youngest from Georgia to die from the virus.
Latest Atlanta coronavirus news: Georgia’s toll at 176, including 11-year-old boy
Come the dawn — a little over 2 hours prior to my writing these words this afternnon, the news happily reversed itself.
LOCAL UPDATE: No Georgia children have died from the coronavirus
A report that an 11-year-old DeKalb County boy had died Thursday was an error, a DPH spokeswoman said Friday.
“An unfortunate one by the reporting facility, but the good news is we did not lose a child,” Nancy Nydam, DPH spokeswoman, said in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Not a word about how such a stunning error occurred. Did Alexis Stevens, who reported the death to the public for the DPH somehow mistakenly receive age information that was incorrect? But “boy” is “boy.” Did the hospital produce a death count wrongly attributing the death of a boy aged 11 to coronavirus when it was due to some other cause? But causes of death are official and can only be pronounced by MDs, whether ER, attending, or coroners, or pathologists. How likely is it that they would make such an error?
I refuse to speculate beyond there. However, I remain stunned that such an error occurred and that a DPH “spokesperson” issues a correction, and only by e-mail to the Atlanta paper. Shouldn’t some detail about such an error have been offered? Is that email an official statement from the state government?
Unless and until more information about this error is available, it is difficult to determine which is the correct headline. Errors like these — shocking and unexplained — add to the fear and confusion, already at hyper levels, that surround announcements, policies, and statistics people depend on to know what to do to protect themselves. . .and their children.
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Today’s significant increase in cases is in part due to additional laboratories reporting to DPH, and also improvements in electronic reporting from other laboratories. Patient information is often incomplete and DPH works to complete the records, so data will change over time.
Georgia Department of Public Health Statistics
Updates Now Issued at Noon and 7:00 PM
3/3/2020 First day of reporting 3 cases, 0 deaths
3/12/2020 First death reported 1 death
4/1/2020 Noon report 4638 cases, 952 hospitalizations. 139 or 138 deaths
COVID-19 Confirmed Cases: |
No. Cases (%) |
Total |
5831 (100%)* |
Hospitalized |
1158(19.86%)** |
Deaths |
184 (3.16%)** |
*a jump over of 1200 cases in two days; **a slight decrease in cases needing hospitalization; a 0.16% increase in the death rate.
COVID-19 Testing By Lab Type: |
No. Pos. Tests |
Total Tests |
Commercial Lab |
5428 |
22960 |
GPH labs |
403 |
2305 |
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Discussion
Leading age group demographic remains 18-59 years-old, which stands at 59%. A distressing trend is a-borning. The percentage has been increasing 1% every other day over the past week. The 60+ age group remains steady at 36%, as does the <18 population hold at 1%.
52% of cases are female, an increase of 1%; while males remain at 46%. This is possible because sex is not identified in every reported case, for reasons I don’t know.
77 of the deaths are female; 97 male; 10 unknown As is widely reported in China and Italy, male exceed female deaths by a significant amount.
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