Kelly Hayes
Hillsborough County confirmed an additional 292 cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, a decline from Tuesday’s more than 500 new cases.
The county also saw 11 new deaths related to the virus, and two additional hospitalizations, according to Florida Department of Health data released Thursday. Since the start of the pandemic, the county has reported 107,806 cases of COVID-19, including 1,438 deaths.
The county’s positivity rate on Wednesday narrowly slipped under the previous day’s 8% at 7.94%. The last week has seen a gradual rise in positivity rates, but has so far remained under 10%, the threshold for which mass community spread is indicated.
In Pinellas County, 233 new cases were reported Wednesday. The county has been maintaining daily caseloads below 400 for the past two weeks.
Pinellas reported 12 new deaths and 16 additional hospitalizations in the latest report, bringing the virus’ death toll in the county to 1,397. So far, the county has recorded 64,099 cases of COVID-19.
The county saw a positivity rate of 6.49% on Wednesday. That’s a bit higher than the county’s previous week’s average positivity rate, which was typically below 5%.
Both counties are working as quickly as possible to get shots into seniors’ arms.
Hillsborough is working to vaccinate seniors through its Targeted Vaccine Area (TVA) initiative, which makes the vaccine available directly to large groups of pre-identified residents age 65 and older in places where they live and socialize.
This week, the program will visit 15 locations in Plant City, Apollo Beach and Tampa to administer about 1,600 first doses and 1,000 second doses. Next week, the TVAs will visit 10 locations in Tampa and Sun City Center to administer about 1,200 first doses and more than 5,300 second doses.
As of last Saturday, the program has distributed an initial dose to nearly 14,500 seniors, and more than 1,650 second doses have been administered.
So far, Hillsborough County as a whole has vaccinated 120,583 individuals, 60,665 of whom have completed the series. Pinellas County is close behind, having vaccinated 117,613 people, including 59,252 who have received a second dose.
