COVID Numbers Spike Statewide and Locally

ALACHUA COUNTY – The COVID-19 pandemic is making a resurgence worldwide, especially in the U.S. and in Florida. Much of it has become politicized with some believing it is serious and following guidelines for social distancing and mask wearing while others feel it is overblown or even a hoax and ignoring the guidelines.

Cities and states have handled it differently and have even been at odds over how and when to open back up. While there are disagreements and ambiguities, one thing is certain: COVD-19 is a highly infectious virus.

Scientists and researchers are constantly tracking infections and recoveries. But they have data only on confirmed cases, so they can’t count people who don’t get COVID-19 tests. Experts also don’t have information about the outcome of every infection. However, early estimates predict that the overall COVID-19 recovery rate is about 97 percent with the majority of deaths among the elderly or people with other health complications. However, medical experts are now seeing an increase in mortality among healthy younger people who are also emerging as the most infected age group.

The most common sign is a fever, which for most adults is 100.4 F or higher. Nearly nine in 10 people who test positive for the disease have a high temperature. It’s a sign that your body is trying to fight off an invader. About 70 percent of people who become ill have a dry cough. Other common signs include new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.

Other signs emulate symptoms of the flu. Up to 30 percent of people may initially be asymptomatic and show no signs. The incubation period before getting symptoms range between four days to two weeks—but these people can still spread it before showing symptoms. It may take two weeks or more for the body to get over the illness. That’s the average recovery time for mild cases, according to the World Health Organization. For those with health issues or critical cases, recovery can take up to six weeks. About 14 percent of people who have the new coronavirus need to stay in the hospital to get help breathing in an ICU facility. The hospital stay can last another two to six weeks.

Because of this timeline, all statistics do not happen simultaneously. Any surge in cases will take another two to four weeks before becoming serious enough to see an upsurge in hospitalizations and a similar or even longer time to increase the mortality rate.

During the current surge, which began in early June, several weeks after reopenings and relaxation of guidelines in various states such as Texas, Arizona, Florida and California, the numbers began to climb dramatically. While increased testing accounted for some of the numbers, many of the confirmed cases came from an upsurge in emergency room patients.

Organized testing is still having issues with people in hard hit cities waiting for hours for a test and labs running out of testing kits. In Florida, most testing is performed by private labs; the state has tested 9,888 cases while private labs and doctors have tested 268,779. Overall, Florida has conducted 2,639,574 tests of which 278,667 tested positive with a positivity rate of 10.4 percent. This is a dramatic increase from a month ago when only 6 percent tested positive and 8 percent two weeks ago. Some days in the past two weeks have seen as much as a 19 percent positivity rate.

Globally, there are 12,945,505 cases with a daily increase of 437,656 cases as of July 13. It has taken the lives of 571,444 people, while 7,001,675 have recovered. That presents a mortality rate of 4.5 percent. Currently the United States accounts for 25 percent of all cases and deaths with 3,366,515 cases and 137,191 deaths for a mortality rate of 4 percent. The daily infection rate increased by over 75,000 on July13.

The state of Florida reopened despite not meeting the CDC established guidelines for reopening. As of April 1, there were 7,700 cases in Florida with a daily increase of under 1,000 new cases. Florid Governor Ron DesSantis reluctantly put the state in quarantine, although a mask order was not issued statewide. However, several counties including Alachua County did mandate face masks, which kept the rate lower in Alachua than 17 other counties.

The Stay-at-Home order closed most businesses and as a result unemployment surged, as it had throughout the rest of the country. The state quarantine kept the number of new cases down, with small peaks and valleys, but below the high on April 1.

Based on this steady number, DeSantis canceled the quarantine order on May 1. Businesses were allowed to reopen at 50 percent capacity with social distancing enforced. Two weeks later he allowed bars, resorts and parks to reopen. However, many people ignored social distancing and mask requests. Two weeks later the rates began to rise again and continued to climb dramatically with two- to three-day small dips in numbers only to come back higher.

Since late June, Florida has seen an alarming increase in Coronavirus cases, with 10 times the daily infection rate of the initial spike in March. On July 13 the state set a record for number of daily new cases, higher than any previously reported by any state with a daily increase of 12,343 out of a total of 282,435 cases with 4,277 deaths, including an increase of 35 overnight. Based on the timeline, cases spiked while hospitalizations and deaths remained lower than new cases but are now beginning to catch up as the timeline progresses.

There have now been 18,498 hospitalizations during the pandemic in Florida. Current hospitalizations are filling 80 percent of the state's 5,023 ICU beds with less than 950 still available. Out of Florida's 67 counties, 25 have at least one hospital with no ICU beds available as of last week. Ten counties have less than 10 percent of their ICU beds available, and two counties have completely run out of adult ICU beds.

Testing has doubled over the last month, going from about 25,000 tests per day to almost 50,000, but the percentage of people testing positive has risen even more dramatically. A month ago, fewer than 5 percent of tests came up positive on a daily average. Over the past week, the daily average exceeded 11 percent per day.

Alachua County has fared better than 17 other counties partially due to stricter rules on masks and social distancing as well as a good medical base. As of July 13, Alachua County had 2,173 cases with 75 new cases in 24 hours. The county has administered 51,794 tests with a positivity rate much lower than state average at 4.2 percent although it has climbed from 3.2 percent two weeks ago.

Gainesville has a younger demographic than much of Florida with a median age of 29 among the cases. The mortality rate in Alachua County has remained low at 12 for more than five days. However, hospitalizations are rising and 80 percent of ICU beds are filled out of total of 320 beds. Unfortunately based on the timeline, the mortality rate is likely to climb in the next few weeks as hospitalized patients succumb.

While the economy needs to be revived with jobs recreated and schools reopening, allowing relaxation of the rules and people ignoring guidelines may force another shutdown to halt the ever-increasing surge as Florida is now the national hot spot.

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