Janelle Irwin Taylor
Hillsborough County is up 53 cases since Tuesday morning after the Florida Department of Health released its Wednesday evening update of new coronavirus cases. Pinellas County’s tally grew even more with an increase of 63.
Hillsborough is up to 362 reported cases including 351 residents, up from 309 Wednesday morning.
Pinellas’ tally jumped from 170 to 233 since Wednesday morning.
Neither county reported any deaths. Hillsborough held steady at three deaths while Pinellas remained at five.
Hillsborough reported its third death Tuesday, a 92-year-old woman.
Tampa and St. Petersburg lead their respective counties with 245 of Hillsborough’s cases in the county’s largest city. Tampa has the seventh-highest number of reported cases among cities, preceded by Miami with 1,371 cases, Hollywood with 444, Orlando with 332, Fort Lauderdale with 327, Hialeah with 274 and Miami Beach with 266.
Orlando is the only non-South Florida city with more reported cases than Tampa. Only two other non-South Florida cities are in the Top 10 — Jacksonville with 214 cases and Naples with 129.
Clearwater and Largo trail St. Pete in Pinellas County with 48 and 44 cases, respectively.
While Pinellas County trails Hillsborough in the number of reported cases, it leads in the number of deaths with five deaths compared to Hillsborough’s three.
Pinellas has also lacked access to robust testing capabilities, suggesting the outbreak might be more prevalent there than numbers show. The county has tested just 2,977 individuals compared to Hillsborough’s 4,813.
In Hillsborough, 60 people who tested positive have been hospitalized while 51 have been hospitalized in Pinellas, indicating individuals with the COVID-19 disease in Pinellas County are experiencing more serious symptoms than those in Hillsborough.
That could be because Pinellas County’s outbreak is affecting more elderly individuals. Hillsborough County’s largest affected age demographic is people 25 to 34 year olds with 69 reported cases. Only 47 people 65 and older have been diagnosed.
Meanwhile, 56 people 65 and older have been diagnosed with the largest age group affected being those 55 to 64 with 52 cases.
The youngest reported case in Hillsborough County is an infant less than a year old with the oldest affected individual being 93. The youngest person affected in Pinellas is 10 with the oldest being 91.
