Janelle Irwin Taylor
Pinellas County’s two-week positivity rate for new COVID-19 cases is below 10% for the second day in a row.
The rate of tests returned positive Sunday was 8.1%, the same as Saturday, according to Florida Department of Health data released Monday.
The rate has been less than 10% for six straight days and for 10 of the last 14 days.
The 10% threshold is what health officials look for to determine wide community spread.
The news is not so positive in Hillsborough County where the positivity rate hasn’t been less than 10% since June 15. The county’s seven day average rate is 14.6%.
New cases in each county remain high, though have leveled off in recent weeks.
Hillsborough reported 429 new cases from Sunday through Monday morning, a drop from the nearly 1,000 cases per day that had been a regular occurrence earlier this month, but still high compared to mid-June.
The county has now tallied 24,135 cases since the pandemic began.
Health officials recorded eight new deaths in the county Sunday, bringing the death toll to 243.
An additional six people were hospitalized with COVID-19, for a pandemic total of 981. Adult intensive care unit capacity remains low at 12.5% with just 49 of the county’s 344 adult ICU beds available, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.
Pinellas County added 223 new cases Sunday to Monday. Like Hillsborough, that’s a drop from earlier in the month, but still high compared to the fewer than 200 new cases reported daily in mid-June.
Nine additional people died of COVID-19 in Pinellas County, according to deaths confirmed Sunday. A total of 323 people have now died of COVID-19 in Pinellas County.
The county added 17 new hospitalizations Sunday for a pandemic total of 1,138. Adult ICU capacity is at 15.5% with 46 of the county’s 251 beds still available.
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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, considers 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 non-residents 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.
