Scott Powers
While positive-test result rates for the coronavirus continued a slight downward trend across much of Central Florida, trends for new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths continued upward with the latest reports from state officials.
Orange County had 17 people newly-admitted to hospitals for COVID-19 and nine die from the diseases according to Florida Department of Health data released Wednesday, compared with similar data released the day before. The 17 new admissions are the most Orange County hospitals have received in more than a month, and the nine deaths was the worst news Orange has received in any daily report.
In the same reports, six new COVID-19 deaths were recorded for Brevard County, three for Seminole County and one each for Lake and Volusia counties. The region experienced 20 recently-confirmed COVID-19 deaths that showed up in Wednesday’s reports, equalling the region’s record, reported last Thursday. In the past seven days, more than 12 deaths per day have been reported on average, up from a seven-day rolling average of just three deaths per day seen a week earlier.
At the same time 54 new hospitalized COVID-19 patients were reported across the six counties of Central Florida, Orange, Brevard, Seminole Lake, Volusia, and Osceola counties. That pushed the region’s seven day rolling average to 45 new admissions recorded per day, up from 27 a week earlier.
Overall, Orange received news of 532 newly-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wednesday’s report compared with data in Tuesday’s report, far less than the 1,371 seen in Sunday’s report, but still higher than normal for mid-week reports. Volusia received news of 192 newly-confirmed cases; Osceola, 176; Seminole, 129; Lake, 99; and Brevard 90. That high mid-week total pushed the region’s seven-day rolling average to 1,452 daily counts of newly-confirmed COVID-19 cases, a new worst point for the region, and up from 1,258 a week ago.
The good news for the region came in the test results returned Tuesday, which continued a gradual trend downward in the percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive. The seven-day rolling average for the positive test results across the six counties dropped to 10.3% with the test results returned Tuesday, compared with 12.8% a week earlier and 13.3% for the week before that.
In Orange County, 9.2% of 5,174 test results returned Tuesday were positive, the second consecutive day that Orange’s rate was below 10%, the mark public health officials have repeatedly said is the threshold for concern. In Volusia, 12.6% of 1,327 test results were positive in Tuesday’s batch; Osceola, 15.5% of 943 results; Seminole 10.6% of 1,014 results; Brevard, 6.8% of 1,260 results; and Lake, 8.6% of 1,078 results.
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Editor’s note on methodology: The Florida Department of Health releases new data every morning around 10:45 a.m. The total number reported in those daily reports include the previous day’s totals as well as the most up to date data as of about 9:30 a.m.
Florida Politics uses the report-over-report increase to document the number of new cases each day because it represents the most up-to-date data available. Some of the more specific data, including positivity rates and demographics, consider a different data set that includes only cases reported the previous day.
This is important to note because the DOH report lists different daily totals than our methodology to show day-over-day trends. Their numbers do not include nonresidents who tested positive in the state, and they only include single-day data; therefore, some data in the DOH report may appear lower than what we report.
Our methodology was established based on careful consideration among our editorial staff to capture both the most recent and accurate trends.
One comment
Ray Blacklidge
July 15, 2020 at 2:27 pm
Florida Labs Caught Purposely Inflating Positive COVID Cases
https://trendingpolitics.com/florida-labs-caught-purposely-inflating-positive-covid-cases/?utm_source=freedom&utm_medium=email
“Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, which means every single person tested was positive. Other labs had very high positivity rates,” reported FOX 35, adding that a Centra Care laboratory stated that all 83 people who were tested had the virus.
The news station investigated the suspect “astronomical” findings and found the data was skewed by the lack of reported negative tests.
For example, Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center’s reported positivity rate of 76% is actually around 6%, a spokesperson for the center revealed. The report added, “Orlando Health’s positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.”
The Florida Department of Health came out on Tuesday, stating, “although private and public laboratories are required to report positive and negative results to the state immediately, some have not,” said FOX 35. “Specifically, they said that some smaller, private labs were not reporting negative test result data to the state.”
Florida Department of Health spokesperson said they are now making sure that the labs conduct “proper protocol” to report accurate coronavirus cases.
“The Department immediately began working with those labs to ensure that all results were being reported in order to provide comprehensive and transparent data,” the spokesperson said. “As the state continues to receive results from various labs, the Department will continue educating these labs on proper protocol for reporting COVID-19 test results.”
The Daily Wire continues:
Florida has garnered dire media headlines over their recent surge in positive coronavirus test results. The Sunshine State hit a record high on Monday, with a reported 12,000 positive tests.
According to Bay News 9, Dr. Raul Pino with Florida Dept. of Health-Orange County theorized that the spike in positives tests was partly because of a “backlogged test results being added to the state’s data,” “added labs entering results electronically,” and “daily tests inside the so-called ‘Disney Bubble’ for the NBA and the MLS.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has been repeatedly criticized by Democrats and mainstream media outlets for refusing to dictate blanket, strict social distancing measures on his citizens, instead opting for more targeted approach with a focus on the elderly, who are most vulnerable to the virus.
Though the state of Florida has not come close to the catastrophic results in liberal New York, where more draconian measures and deadly nursing home orders (which have since been rescinded) were imposed by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the media have frequently praised the Democrat for his handling of the crises while slamming DeSantis.
According to data provided by the Florida Health Department on Tuesday, the state, which has a population of about 21.4 million, has had over 4,400 deaths attributed to the virus. New York, a state with an estimated population of 19.5 million, has had more than 32,000.
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