Florida is stuck with a pandemic that is intensifying as the coronavirus infects more and more people, making hundreds sick every day before they can get the vaccine.
The number of new cases continues to increase and has skyrocketed in the past two weeks among elderly people and residents of long-term care facilities.
There are more COVID-19 patients hospitalized now than at any time since mid-August, and that number has been growing steadily for two consecutive months.
So far, trends in the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths have fallen short of cases in young adults. Therefore, the pandemic is likely to get even worse until the cases of young adults – who continue their steady escalation – turn the tide, or many, many Florida residents are vaccinated.
With the increase in tests, the number of cases almost reached its maximum summer level. In the week ending Wednesday, more than 11,300 people tested positive each day, on average. The numbers were higher than just for a period of about four days in July.
For some age groups, including those between 65 and 85, new cases have already eclipsed their summer peaks. But that doesn’t mean the state is as bad as it was in mid-July: hospitalization numbers are still less than 60% of the peak, while case numbers in the recent past are much higher than that.
Intensive care units in Florida hospitals are about 81% full, after a sharp and steady increase since the beginning of December. At the peak of July, that number was 84%. Of course, this is statewide – some regions inevitably run out of space before others. According to data from the Department of Health and Human Services collected by the New York Times, ICUs in hospitals serving Tallahassee, Port Charlotte and Cape Coral were almost fully booked last week.
Locally, there were sharp spikes in the number of COVID-19 patients in Hillsborough and Pasco counties and a steady increase in Pinellas.
Particularly in the past two weeks, there have been worrying signs of rapid spread among Florida’s vulnerable. New daily cases in people aged 85 and over have increased 65% since the Thanksgiving weekend, three times faster than the increase in cases in general.
There is also an increase in the number of cases of residents in long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes, an increase that alarms advocates. Cases stagnated from mid-November to early December, but jumped from 1,500 active cases to more than 2,300 in just two weeks. (New cases in the general population also declined around Thanksgiving; holidays often lead to peculiar data.)
Florida’s oldest counties are seeing bad peaks now. The number of new cases in Sumter County, home to the retirement mecca The Villages, is almost twice as high as in the summer. The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has doubled since the beginning of the month, a meteoric increase.
Charlotte County, the second oldest in the state, has grown from about 40 COVID-19 patients around Thanksgiving to more than 90 now. Charlotte now ranks third among Florida’s 67 counties in hospitalized people per capita.
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