Jacksonville shows no new COVID-19 fatalities in nearly a month

No county in the five-county First Coast region recorded any daily coronavirus deaths, according to Florida Department of Health figures released Sunday.

The total number of fatalities due to COVID-19 held steady at 288 while the number of total cases in Northeast Florida increased by 444 over Saturday morning’s figure to 32,494.

The number of daily fatalities remaining unchanged shifts a notable trend for Jacksonville in particular. The city had been recording at least one death on a daily basis going back to July 18. Friday’s and Saturday’s state figures showed Jacksonville recorded 12 and 11 fatalities respectively, closing in on the city’s single-day record of 16 fatalities on July 25.

Jacksonville’s positivity rate for coronavirus testing has also stabilized in the past two weeks. Jacksonville recorded a 21.1% positivity test rate on July 9. The city then retreated below 10% for the first time in weeks three days later on July 12.

The positivity rate for coronavirus tests had fluctuated through mid-July and then in late July, those figures started to even out. Sunday’s figures showed Jacksonville’s positivity rate at 6.9%. The positivity rate hasn’t exceeded 10% in August and that figure has averaged 7.2% in the past seven days. The average positivity rate for the past two weeks in Jacksonville is now 7.4%.

In other areas of the First Coast:

• St. Johns County recorded 42 new infections for a total of 3,635.
• Clay County ticked up by 37 new cases for a total of 3,282.
• Baker County saw 80 new cases for a total of 907.
• Nassau County recorded 14 new cases for a total of 1,233.

Across Florida, there are now 532,806 infections caused by COVID-19 and 8,315 have died.