Drew Dixon
The Northeast Florida coronavirus case count ticked up slightly Wednesday evening as the region managed to stave off any additional fatalities from the illness.
The upbeat news is five First Coast counties accounted for only 14 combined new cases of COVID-19. Even Duval County only recorded eight new cases in the evening update from the Florida Department of Health. Jacksonville now has a total of 557 confirmed cases. That’s up by 36 over the total count from Tuesday.
The news comes as the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL franchise announced Wednesday that it will distribute tens of thousands of protective masks in the city. The team is donating 45,000 masks with the franchise’s logo on it.
The team’s website said it was in honor of retired Jaguar offensive tackle Tony Boselli who detailed his brush with coronavirus. He was hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Jacksonville’s Mayo Clinic with COVID-19 in late March before he recovered.
The smaller Northeast Florida counties remained relatively stable Wednesday evening with St. Johns County adding only two cases in their total of 156. Clay County also went up by two cases to 99. Nassau and Baker counties saw no new cases on the DOH coronavirus “dashboard” Wednesday evening. The agency updates its data twice a day.
Jacksonville not only had its smallest increase in weeks, but it also did not add to the hospitalization count, which held at 54. Baker County also had no additional hospitalizations in the past day, holding at three.
Clay, Nassau and St. Johns each added a few more hospitalizations. Clay went up by four to a total of 30. Nassau added one and now stands at six total and St. Johns increased by four to a total of 32.
Statewide, there are 15,698 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Out of those, 323 people have died from the illness. Another 2,082 people in Florida have been hospitalized.
Nationally, 429,052 people have been infected with coronavirus in America. Out of that figure, 14,529 people have died.
