COVID cases tick up, another death is marked

The number of new COVID-19 cases involving Grady County residents continues to remain low this week, although it did creep up from one new case last week to eight new cases this week. We also recorded another death of a fellow citizen from the disease, bringing our total killed by COVID-19 to 45 in the last year.

Grady General Hospital had no COVID-patients as of Tuesday, although Archbold Memorial Hospital in Thomasville was treating five such patients, according to Shealy Register, spokeswoman for Archbold Medical Center, which operates both hospitals.

Grady County Schools saw a slight uptick in the number of students affected by COVID-19 as of Tuesday. There were five students on quarantine, one more than last week, and one student testing positive this week, compared to zero last week.

For the second week in a row, no teachers were on quarantine or positive, according to Dr. Kermit Gilliard, superintendent of Grady County Schools.

Students on quarantine as of Tuesday included two at Washington Middle School, and one each at Northside and Eastside elementary schools and at Cairo High School.

The one student positive for the disease attends Washington Middle.

Like Grady County, Thomas County recorded an additional death from COVID-19 during the last week while Decatur and Mitchell counties had no new deaths. To our south, both Leon and Gadsden counties had three new deaths.