Source: South Georgia Medical Center

VALDOSTA — South Georgia Medical Center has set record-highs for COVID-19 patients twice in the past four days.

The hospital reported it was treating 74 COVID-19 patients Wednesday morning, according to its daily report. The new total tops the previous record of 73 from Sunday.

The past three weeks have seen coronavirus patient totals in the hospital hover around 70, according to its daily report.

Last week, Dr. Brian Dawson, SGMC chief medical officer, described the hospital’s bed capacity for COVID-19 patients as approximately 96 beds, and despite the recent surge in coronavirus patients the past couple of weeks, SGMC was still accepting transfers from other hospitals.

Cases in Lowndes County grew by 25 Wednesday, reporting a total of 3,032 cases since the pandemic began, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health report.

So far, 139 Lowndes residents have been hospitalized due to COVID-19, since the start of the outbreak, according to the report.

Thirty Lowndes County residents have died from the virus since the start of the outbreak, according to the South Health District.

The South Health District has performed 20,901 coronavirus tests throughout its 10 counties as of Wednesday, according to the district COVID-19 website.

SGMC has discharged 428 COVID-19 patients – numbers reflecting the total patients discharged since the start of the pandemic — and had three patients waiting for testing results, according to the SGMC report.

Sixty-two patients at SGMC have died from the virus since the outbreak of COVID-19, according to the hospital’s report.

Not all SGMC patients are Lowndes County residents and some patients who have been transferred from other regional hospitals have tested positive for COVID-19, according to past reports.

For more data on Lowndes and the surrounding counties, The Valdosta Daily Times has created a database to track COVID-19 across the South Health District.

To reach the database, click the link here.