Drew Dixon
Jacksonville’s coronavirus count jumped Wednesday evening, reflecting the larger trend of the skyrocketing number of cases across the state.
The Florida Department of Health’s coronavirus “dashboard” on the agency’s website showed the Duval County confirmed case count bumped up to 239. That’s up from 218 in the morning report from DOH.
The one bright spot was that Jacksonville held steady on the number of deaths from the illness at four. But there were still 31 people who’ve been hospitalized because of COVID-19 in Duval County — three more since the morning report.
Of the total cases, 232 victims are Jacksonville residents while another seven are nonresidents. All are Florida residents.
The majority of those infected in Jacksonville are women with 123 cases, 102 cases are men. The sex of some patients is unknown. The oldest victim is 97 years old and the youngest is 5.
A total of 3,993 coronavirus tests have been administered in Jacksonville. But the demand was so high for free tests at a parking lot outside TIAA Bank Field, the city set a limit of 250 tests per day. The testing center outside the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars had to be shut down twice this week because demand exceeded that cap.
Some 3,566 people have tested negative for coronavirus in Jacksonville.
The jump in numbers also came on the same day when Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said he was going to institute an executive “safer-at-home” order that would take effect Friday. But only hours later Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a similar order for the entire state.
DeSantis’ order goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday.
Across the state, 7,773 people had tested positive for coronavirus as of Wednesday evening, a significant increase from the agency’s morning report, which showed 6,955 positives in the state. The evening report also said there 101 deaths in Florida. That’s up from 87 fatalities earlier in the day.
Nationally, there are 213,372 cases of coronavirus, and 4,757 deaths have been attributed to the virus.
