Members of the EPG have to navigate the news of a spike in positive novel coronavirus cases which, this time around, is impacting predominately those age 15 to 64 years of age.
Florida now has had 66,000 positive COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday morning. Of those, 2,851 have died.
And data shows the numbers are once more on the rise as the state attempts to balance its reopening with more strict safety measures. It’s a topic that has elected officials bracing for impact and local residents eying their at-home offices once more.
The overall number of COVID-19 cases in the county is rising steadily, but the fatality rate is not. The reason for this is that many of the new cases are not coming from the elderly or those with more vulnerable immune systems. Instead, the growth rate is highest among people 15 to 64 years of age: the working population.
That is a piece of data we really haven’t seen yet and it has heavily impacted the way the county has had to handle transmission. The good news is younger patients less often need hospitalization and have a lower percentage of fatalities. This means that even if they are infected, only a small percentage of them have to seek treatment in a hospital.
However, they still are capable of transmitting the virus to others who may not be as lucky.
During Thursday afternoon’s Emergency Policy Group meeting, Hillsborough County leaders were told there were 450 new cases over the past week. To put that in perspective, the jump reported during the prior week’s meeting was 250 cases and that alone was enough to put many of the EPG members on edge.
Dr. Douglas Holt, director of the state’s Health Department for Hillsborough County, told the group he continues to work with the long-term care facilities as they will always remain the largest area of concern for the country. Approximately half of all deaths in Florida coming from COVID-19 have been tied to these long-term care facilities and several of the state’s worst outbreaks have happened right here in Hillsborough County.
Over the past week, every day except Monday has had the number of new COVID-19 cases in Florida topping 1,000. On Tuesday it was reported Florida had 1,096 new cases in just 24 hours.
This news comes just as Governor Ron DeSantis put into effect the Phase 2 reopening plan that allowed bars, movie theaters and entertainment venues to open their doors again and the social gathering number to increase to approximately 50 people. The civil unrest throughout the nation has also changed the conversation. The groups in Plant City alone have ranged from around 50 people to a few hundred for each protest. In Tampa, that number has grown from several hundred to the thousands.
Testing is ultimately the only way for the county and state to know what the actual impact of COVID-19 looks like for the community. While testing across the entire state has continued to steadily rise, ProPublica announced the number of positive cases coming per 100,000 people tested is also increasing. That’s to be expected with so many more people out and about, but it does put a burden on the EPG and the medical community to continue to ensure there is strong education being distributed to the public and that health facilities are capable of handling a second wave, should it come.
For the latest updates, tune in to this afternoon’s EPG meeting at 1:30 p.m. on the county’s YouTube channel and its Facebook page.
