First Coast jumps past 82K COVID-19 cases with 6K new cases in 1 week

CORONAVIRUS JAX
Case count for First Coast continues to soar, but deaths are down a bit in recent days.

The five-county First Coast region now has 82,918 coronavirus infections, up about 6,000 cases in just one week, according to Florida Department of Health data released Monday.

On Dec. 15 that figure was 76,986 cases of COVID-19 in Northeast Florida. That’s a 7.7% increase in cases in the past week for the region. Much of that was attributed to a case surge last week when a couple days saw single-day increases of more than 1,000 new infections each day.

The pace slowed on Friday through the weekend when new cases fell below 1,000 new infections each day.

The First Coast region had a slower pace in the number of deaths attributed to coronavirus in the past week. On Dec.15 there were a total of 1,059 deaths caused by the affliction in the region. There are now 1,081 deaths. There were days earlier this month when there were more than 20 new deaths caused by the virus in one day.

The positivity rate for coronavirus tests continues to fluctuate wildly along the First Coast throughout the past several weeks. Monday’s positivity rate jumped above 10% in all five counties.

Jacksonville recorded a 10.26% positivity rate Monday. The average rate going back to Dec. 7 was 9.26% with the highest rate at 11.01% on Dec. 14 and the lowest at 7.51% on Dec. 11.

There were 54,956 infections in Jacksonville as of Monday with 699 fatalities.

Clay County recorded a 14.15% positive test rate Monday. The average positive test rate over the past 14 days is 10.54% in Clay with Monday’s rate the highest during that period and Dec. 9 the lowest at 6.58%.

Clay has 10,023 infections now since the outbreak began in March and 172 fatalities attributed to COVID-19.

Nassau County posted a 13.41% positive test rate Monday. Clay’s average test rate since Dec. 7 is 9.97%. Nassau has 4,136 total cases and 64 fatalities due to coronavirus.

St. Johns County recorded an 11.93% positive test rate Monday. St. Johns has averaged a 9.7% positive test rate since Dec. 7. St. Johns has 11,491 cases and 110 fatalities.

Baker County recorded a 17.2% positive test rate Monday. Baker has averaged a 12.85% positive test rate over the past 14 days. Baker now has 36 fatalities and 2,312 infections due to the pandemic.

There are now 1,212,581 total COVID-19 infections across Florida and 20,680 fatalities due to the outbreak in the state.

Drew Dixon

Drew Dixon is a journalist of 40 years who has reported in print and broadcast throughout Florida, starting in Ohio in the 1980s. He is also an adjunct professor of philosophy and ethics at three colleges, Jacksonville University, University of North Florida and Florida State College at Jacksonville. You can reach him at [email protected].


One comment

  • Sonja Fitch

    December 22, 2020 at 4:51 am

    It hurts my heart and soul to watch this disaster! The folks in North East Florida are cautious! But by all that is good we aint stupid! Wear a mask! Wash hands! Social distance! We going Democrat Blue! We are going to show all the world that we are damn good at protecting each other! Georgia elect Warnock and Ossoff!

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