Kelly Hayes
Coronavirus cases are continuing to drop in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, Monday reports show.
Pinellas added 70 new cases, as reported in the Florida Department of Health’s report covering new cases confirmed between Sunday morning and Monday morning. Last Monday, the county reported 112 new cases.
Hillsborough County recorded 145 new cases — 203 less than last week’s Monday morning report. However, Hillsborough saw 316 new cases on Saturday, and Pinellas 158.
The latest reports show Pinellas County kept its positivity rate below 5% over the weekend, a target set by St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman. On Friday, the positivity rate hit 4.6%, and on Saturday, it was 3.5%.
Pinellas County has been below 10% for more than three weeks now, and bounced between 4%-7% throughout last week.
Hillsborough County maintained a positivity rate of 6.7% on Saturday, which is the county’s lowest rate of the week.
Pinellas County reported three new deaths in Sunday’s report. Neither county reported any Monday’s report.
Pinellas now has 1,711 hospitalizations, up nine from Sunday’s report. Hillsborough County added only three hospitalizations Sunday, totaling 1,393 hospitalizations. Of those infected, about 64% of hospitalizations are of patients over 65 in Pinellas County, and in Hillsborough, about 50% are over 65.
Hillsborough County’s ICU availability is at about 17%, with 64 adult beds open. Despite higher hospitalization numbers, Pinellas County still has 65 ICU beds 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.
