Staff Reports
Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said the city is distributing more protective gear to health care workers in the city as the number of coronavirus cases in Duval County ticked up Saturday night to 120, according to the Florida Department of Health.
That figure is up from the DOH number released about 11 a.m. Saturday that showed 115 cases in Jacksonville. The DOH COVID-19 “dashboard” is updated twice daily.
Out of the total number of cases recorded in Jacksonville, 114 are residents of the city while another six are not. All live in Florida.
Out of those, 50 victims are men while 59 are women and they range in age from 13 to 97. The average age of the Duval County infected is 53.
While deaths from the virus continue to increase across the state, Duval County has held steady at three for several days, though 22 people have been hospitalized.
There have been 1,768 tests for coronavirus that have come back negative in Duval County.
Curry showed no easing up on concerns about the spread of coronavirus. In a Facebook post late Saturday afternoon, he said the city is increasing measures to stem the affliction in Duval County.
“The city has been distributing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to support hospital operations and other health care and assisted living facilities. As of this afternoon The EOC [Emergency Operations Center] has provided over 137,000 pieces of PPE, that includes masks, gowns, and gloves. [Saturday], alone, we have distributed 17,424 of PPE items to local hospitals,” Curry said
Curry signed an executive order Monday advising local businesses to let non-essential personnel work at home. Free public testing for the illness was expanded at TIAA Bank Field and a federal field hospital was established at the Prime Osborn Convention Center in downtown.
Curry has repeatedly said the field hospital would only be utilized if Jacksonville hospitals reached capacity, which they are not close to, yet. But if they do reach maximum occupancy, the field hospital could handle 250 intensive care unit patients.
There are a total of 4,038 cases of coronavirus across Florida as of Saturday evening, the DOH website said. That’s up from the figure of 3,763 earlier Saturday. The toll climbed to 56 Saturday evening, up from 46.
A total of 43,071 tests have been administered across the Sunshine State. Of those, 3,877 have tested positive and 37,327 have come back negative.
Nationally, there were 119,748 cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Of those, 1,991 have ended in fatalities.
Globally, 657,691 people have been infected as of Saturday evening and out of those, 30,438 have died from coronavirus around the world.
