Flagler County recorded two covid-related deaths over the weekend, bringing the county’s total to 36 in the past six and a half months. A 71-year-old white man died on Saturday, and a 76-year-old white man died on Sunday, Bob Snyder, who heads the county health department, said this morning.
Covid-related deaths in Florida since March total 16,222, and in the nation, 220,000. Nine people were hospitalized at AdventHealth Palm Coast today, with a primary diagnosis of covid-19, a number that has remained steady for the past three to four weeks–but has not fallen.
In the week ending last Friday, the Flagler County school district reported six new positive cases among students and three among school employees, at Buddy Taylor Middle School, Flagler Technical College, Indian Trails Middle School, Matanzas High School and Rymfire Elementary School, as well as at the district office. Daytona State College has reported 14 positive cases since classes resumed on Sept. 6, but none at its Palm Coast campus. Nine children 17 and younger have died so far in the state due to the pandemic, and 799 have been hospitalized, according to the state Department of Health.
In Flagler, the weekly case load continues to to remain stubbornly high, relative to the summer spike, even though relative to other counties in the state Flagler is in better shape. It has the 22nd lowest rate of infection, out of 67 counties, based on the last seven days’ average. The county totaled 83 cases in the seven days to Oct. 17, one more than in the previous seven-day period.
Florida’s Rt value, which measures the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person, has been rising again, and now stands at 1.07 after falling below 1 from the beginning of July to the end of September. When the number is at 1, the number of new infections is constant. When it’s below 1, the number of infections are falling. When it’s above 1, infections are accelerating. At 1.07, the state’s Rt value is still well below the 1.4 it reached in June, just ahead of the summer’s big spike. But public health officials look at the trend–and worrying about a second wave in fall as the weather cools, people move indoors and holiday activities create more socializing in groups.
Nationally, the numbers have been surging again since mid-September, rising almost every day and topping 70,000 on Friday for the first time since July. The seven-day average is at 56,600 cases per day. So far this fall Florida has been spared the national spike, but the state’s seven-day average was above 2,900 on Sunday, up 29 percent from two weeks before.
In an appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who as the trust of two out of three Americans, could not see a turning point yet. “When you have a million deaths and over 30 million infections globally, you can not say that we’re on the road to essentially getting out of this,” he said. “So quite frankly, I don’t know where we are. It’s impossible to say.”
Today, President Trump called him an idiot. “People are tired of Covid,” Trump said in a call with aides, reported by the New York Times. “People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong.” The paper said he called Fauci a “nice” guy, but that “He’s been here for 500 years,” and added, “Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb, but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. This guy’s a disaster.”
Really says
OH BOY Death Division Violence and Disease under DeSantis and Trump. Sign me up for another 4 years NOT. Hey lets have another BiktOberFest or fill a Stadium. Better yet lets Campaign and diss Science Scientists masks C19 Deaths deaths to come maybe to you and yours and lets not forget to piss on a number of other Liberties while we are at it and call it WINNING LMAO
MIMOSA HASANBELLIU says
Imagine how much worse it would be if people had not listened to Dr. Fauci. Follow the Science not the Politicians. Just today President Trump, with all of his medical knowledge and experience, called Dr. Fauci an “IDIOT” and a disaster and said he wanted to fire him a long time ago but knew it would not look good. Injecting bleach, on the other hand, does. Dr. Fauci has compassion for all of the people who have contracted Covid especially for those who have dies. President Trump, whose Grandfather died from the Spanish flu, whose Brother is rumored to have died from Covid, who himself along with his Wife and Son has tested Positive has no compassion for anybody else but himself.