Drew Dixon
Jacksonville surpassed a couple of dubious markers in its coronavirus count, according to Florida Department of Health data released Tuesday.
Duval County blew past the 40,000 count for cases of COVID-19 with a total of 44,450, up from the previous day’s figure of 43,978. It was also the only county in the five-county First Coast region to record any fatalities on the day. Jacksonville saw 22 new deaths attributed to the virus for a total of 626 since the outbreak began in March.
Duval County also was among four out of five counties in the region to record a positivity test rate above 10%. Jacksonville had a 10.53% positivity rate, the second day in a row above 10% after remaining below that mark since mid-November.
Northeast Florida has now recorded a total of 66,755 COVID-19 infections with 959 fatalities.
St. Johns County had the most additional daily cases outside of Duval with a total of 8,931 infections, up from 8,832. There were no new fatalities in St. Johns holding steady at 96. But the positivity test rate was 11.26%, slightly down from the previous day’s rate of 13.37%.
Clay County had 92 new infections for the day for a total of 8,107 with no change in the fatality count of 148. The positivity test rate in Clay increased from 11.34% to 12.52%.
Nassau County added 25 infections for a total of 3,221 and no new fatalities on top of the 57 already recorded. Nassau is the only First Coast county to see the positivity test rate fall below 10% falling from 14.05% to 8.22%.
Baker County added 16 new infections for a total of 2,046 and no new fatalities, remaining at 32. The daily positivity test rate fell to 12.31%, down from 20.41%.
There are now 1,008,166 coronavirus infections across the state with 18,916 fatalities caused by the pandemic in Florida.
