Janelle Irwin Taylor
Pinellas County’s percent positivity rate for new COVID-19 diagnoses Sunday jumped to 8.4%, the highest it’s been since Nov. 8 when the rate was 9.39%.
But the county’s seven-day rolling average is still relatively low at 5.69%, just above the 5% threshold some health officials say is the cap for reopening some activities like in-person learning at schools.
Its rate is about the same as the overall state average, but much higher than neighboring Hillsborough County. There, the percent positivity was 6.24% Sunday, down from 7.7% the day before and lower than the 7.19% seven-day rolling average.
Pinellas County added 250 new cases from Sunday’s report to Monday’s. The county has now tallied 33,058 cases since the pandemic began including 32,602 residents.
Hillsborough added 201 new cases for a total of 58,293, including 57,870 residents.
Both counties confirmed three additional deaths Sunday bringing Hillsborough County’s death toll to 932 and Pinellas County’s to 902. Hillsborough County’s death rate from the virus remains at 2%, the same as the state average, while Pinellas County’s rate is higher at 3%, a trend that has continued throughout the pandemic.
While Pinellas County’s Sunday numbers were higher than in Hillsborough, the county home to Tampa has added 2,811 new cases since one week ago while Pinellas has confirmed 2,180 new cases.
Hillsborough has confirmed a total of 47 new deaths over the past week, an average of nearly seven per day. Pinellas County confirmed 35 deaths over the last seven days, an average of five per day.
As is a typical trend for Sundays, both counties saw a drop in tests returned. Hillsborough County received results from 2,958 tests, down from 4,265 Saturday and 3,979 Friday. The largest batch of testing over the past two weeks in Hillsborough came on Nov. 25 with the county received 6,878 test results.
Pinellas County received 2,571 test results Sunday, down from 3,126 Saturday and 4,694 Friday. Its largest batch in the past two weeks came on Nov. 20 when the county received 6,230 results.
Monday’s report from the Florida Department of Health covers cases from Sunday morning to Monday morning.
Statewide, Florida will likely surpass 1 million total cases of COVID-19 Tuesday. As of Monday morning, the state had confirmed 999,319 cases since the outbreak began. Daily increases have ranged for the past week between the mid-6,000s to as high as more tan 10,000 cases, numbers resembling the summer spike.
The report comes just after Gov. Ron DeSantis took questions from reporters for the first time at a press conference since October. At that conference he officially announced schools would remain open for the spring semester, an announcement that was already expected.
