Scott Powers
With COVID-19 trends going in the wrong direction, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and Health Director Dr. Raul Pino pleaded with Orange County residents to get vaccinated, to prevent needless infections and deaths.
Demings and Pino made their pleas in the light of rising numbers of COVID-19 infections in Orange County, increasing positive-test results rates, and new data showing 95% of Orange County’s COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations over the past five months were among unvaccinated individuals.
Concern is elevating to community fear due to the rise in the more aggressive delta variant, and with increasing large gatherings for the summer, most notably Independence Day celebrations.
“My worst fear is that more people will die and more people will contract the disease … especially when it can be avoidable and preventable,” Demings said. “We have the solution. And the solution clearly is to get vaccinated.”
Demings, Pino and other Orange County officials have been consistently pushing COVID-19 vaccinations from the start, through at least one news conference a week — 140 in the past 17 months — and through other forums. On Wednesday, however, they showed a renewed urgency as all the numbers suggested another potential surge might be brewing.
At times Wednesday, Demings and Pino sounded on the verge of frustration with people who refuse to get vaccinated, though they both tried hard to remain respectful of individuals’ rights to say no.
“We have it, and there are people who are refusing to take it,” said Pino, the Florida Department of Health director for Orange County. “Because they are afraid. Because they have been misinformed. Or because of some political reasons.
“Please, please, please, do it for you, for your family, and your friends,” Pino said.
Pino said his department analyzed data relating to COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations since the vaccines became fairly widely available in February, and found that 95% of those COVID-19 patients admitted to Orange County hospitals who died were unvaccinated.
Meanwhile, the latest reports from the Florida Department of Health showed the number of COVID-19 cases for last week were the highest seen for each of greater Orlando’s six counties for the week ending last Thursday since the department switched from daily reports to weekly at the start of June.
Positive test rates were also the highest seen.
Yet the numbers of people getting at least their first vaccine shot have fallen in Orange County steadily since May.
Last week, every day saw higher numbers of new COVID-19 infections in Orange County than the previous day.
Orange County’s rolling 14-day positive test rate has climbed from about 4% to 5.9%.
Pino said the numbers were not yet alarming, but that “something is brewing.”
