According to the June 23 daily report from the Georgia Department of Health, Cobb County’s COVID-19 deaths have reach 234, and the total confirmed cases in the county are at 4,134.

To date 818 people have been hospitalized with the disease in the Cobb County.

While those numbers place Cobb in second place for overall deaths, behind Fulton County’s 302, Cobb is nowhere near the leader in per capita deaths. Hancock County has 390.6 deaths per 100,000 compared with 29.6 for Cobb.

Here are the top four counties in total confirmed cases:

• Gwinnett 6,636
• Fulton 5,885
• DeKalb 5,042
• Cobb 4,134

… and the top counties in COVID-19 deaths

• Fulton 302
• Cobb 234
• DeKalb 166
• Gwinnett 163

A cluster of counties in southwest Georgia that have been hard-hit by COVID-19 are at or near the top of the list for both cases per 100,000 and deaths per 100,000.

Low-population Echols County, on the Florida line, leads in cases per 100,000 with 4,460, but the number of confirmed cases is only 177, and they’ve had no reported deaths.

The daily status report

The daily status report from the Georgia Department of Public Health is posted daily at 3 p.m.

In addition to the total confirmed cases, hospitalization and death, the report includes other information such as demographic breakdown by race/ethnicity, sex and age.

You can also download the data in CSV format at this link, so you can open it in a spreadsheet and build different views of the data yourself.

There is also a guide to understanding the data here.

The Georgia Department of Public Health describes the data collection process as follows:

The Daily Status Report is updated once daily at 3 p.m. Data are reported to the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) from numerous labs, hospitals and providers in various ways.

Electronic Laboratory Reports (ELR) are data files transmitted to DPH that contain patient identifiers, test information and results. Individual “case” reports may also be submitted through DPH’s secure web portal, SendSS, from healthcare providers and other required reporters. These reports often contain more specific patient information. In either reporting scenario, data may be incomplete.

Data displayed on the DPH Daily Status Report reflect the information transmitted to DPH, but may not reflect all current tests or cases due to timing of testing and data reporting