Drew Dixon
The five-county First Coast region has surged well beyond the 100,000 mark for total cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic in March, according to Florida Department of Health data released Thursday.
Every day this week, Northeast Florida counties have added nearly 2,000 new cases each day for a collective total of 103,252 COVID-19 infections. The First Coast now has a total of 1,184 deaths caused by the virus and the average positivity test rate for the region was 15.68%.
The acceleration of the total Northeast Florida regional infection count has been dramatic in just the past two weeks. On Dec. 23, there were 84,961 cases and at that time, a jump in the case count by 1,000 in 24 hours seemed dramatic. That’s an increase of 18,291 infections for the region in a half month, or a 17% hike.
Jacksonville is driving much of the radical increase. There were 67,938 total cases of coronavirus in Jacksonville Thursday. That’s a single-day increase of 1,291 infections and a jump of more than 10,000 cases in the past half month.
Jacksonville has 767 deaths caused by COVID-19 and a positivity test rate of 14.18%. The test rate for Jacksonville has hovered near 15% for most of the past week, though it was closer to 10% for most of the week prior to that.
St. Johns County recorded the lowest First Coast positivity test rate Thursday at 12.98%. St. Johns’ testing rate has fluctuated widely in the past two weeks with a peak of 20.76% Dec. 28 to a low of 9.58% Dec. 25.
St. Johns tallied 14,697 infections and maintained a death toll of 118.
Clay County totaled 12,543 coronavirus cases as of Thursday, 193 deaths and an 18.4% positivity rate.
Nassau County tallied 5,449 infections, 68 deaths and an 18.5% positive test rate.
Baker County racked up 2,625 cases, 38 deaths and a 14.36% positivity rate.
Across Florida, there are now 1,429,772 coronavirus cases with 22,817 deaths caused by the pandemic.
