Don’t Believe the Hype About Georgia’s Dramatic Drop in COVID-19 Cases

Misleading Georgia data. After ending stay-at-home orders earlier than most states, Georgia last week reported that—contrary to dire warnings—the state had seen a dramatic decrease in the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths. Very quickly, national media like The Wall Street Journal were crowing over this “welcome trend.”

But that “welcome trend” appears to be a mirage. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s office has since said that cases in the Peach State have not declined significantly and tracking data suggesting otherwise was misleading.

A big part of the problem: Some data for the week of May 2 were presented as