Covid cases have increased for the 10th straight week in Florida, to just under 72,000 as of May 27, and have also increased in Flagler County, to 270 this week, up from 219 the week before, according to the Flagler County Health Department. The county’s positivity rate was 21.3 percent. Flagler is averaging 26 new cases per day. But there are glimmers that the surge is leveling off.
The county is also seeing the first significant outbreak of the disease in an assisted living facility in the past half year, with 20 confirmed cases at Flagler Health and Rehab—15 patients and five staff members.
“Our public health team is in communication with them to provide consultative support and guidance regarding preventive measures inside the facility,” Flagler Health Department Chief Bob Snyder said in an email this morning, citing “review of the infection control procedures, cohorting of positive patients, and keeping a distance from other patients, mask wearing, gowning up by staff, etc.”
The numbers in the community are an undercount, representing only testing conducted by clinics, medical providers and the Health Department, while most of the testing now takes place at home and is not reported.
Flagler Health Department Chief Bob Snyder says the base number should be multiplied by four or five to get a more realistic picture of the prevalence of the disease in the community. That would yield a total case load of 1,080 to 1,350, bringing numbers closer to those reported in last January’s surge, when Flagler’s weekly total officially peaked at 1,469 the week ending on Jan. 14. The sharp rise tracks with Florida’s and Flagler’s previous waves, which have tended to parallel the beginning of the warmest months (June and early July) and the coldest months (December-January), when people mingle more indoors.
The rise is tracking with a much higher positivity rate in central Florida as a whole, as reported by the AdventHealth network: 31.2 percent as of Thursday. That means almost a third of people tested for Covid are testing positive. But according to an internal hospital bulletin, “Covid-19 activity appears to be leveling off as the daily volume of tests has stayed below 800.” The state reports a statewide positivity rate of 26.7 percent.
Case counts also appear to be leveling off, if not dropping, nationwide: the 14-day average shows a 3 percent decline across the United States, but a 17 percent increase in hospitalizations, which always lag behind case counts. Death rates, however, have fallen sharply, with treatment options enabling patients often to immediately counter covid’s effects with various therapies, including pills such as Pfizer’s Paxlovid. Taken for treatment of mild to moderate Covid, the five-day treatment–still in the experimental stage–eases the severity of the infection in most cases.
The rise in cases has led to an increase in hospitalizations. As of Thursday there were 180 in-patients on a primary diagnosis of Covid in AdventHealth’s 15 Central Florida hospitals, including 13 at the hospital in Palm Coast, 13 in Daytona Beach and 27 at the Orlando hospital.
As of Thursday, Florida had recorded a cumulative 6.2 million cases (in a population of 21 million), though the same individuals may have had covid infections repeatedly over the past two years.
There were only 15 vaccinations in Flagler between May 27 and June 2, a figure that includes boosters, even though the Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control continue to emphasize that the most effective way to prevent complications from covid are to get vaccinated and, for those who already are, to get boosted about five to six months from the time of the last shot. The urgency of vaccination increases with age, and with pre-existing conditions: the older the individual, the more essential he or she should be vaccinated.
Flagler’s older population has followed the advice, with 89 percent of those 65 and older fully vaccinated, though only 60 percent have been boosted. Flagler’s younger residents have not been as keen to be either vaccinated or boosted, with just 64 percent of the population as a whole (including those 65 and older) fully vaccinated. The lowest vaccination rate is among 20 to 29 year olds. Only 31 percent of the county’s population has been boosted, about the same proportion as in the nation.
Official state policy, including from the Flagler Health Department, is that masking remains a personal choice. But that policy reflects the rather doctrinaire position of Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who has either denied or downplayed the severity of the epidemic, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who, against a consensus of scientific evidence, has ridiculed mask-wearing as “theater.”
In fact, while masks are certainly no guarantee against infection, they are effective means of diminishing the risk of infection, and they work both ways–both for those who are infected and would reduce exposing others to their virus by being masked, and for those who are not infected but wear the mask as prevention. The masks must be of the K95 class to be effective against the omicron variant. Physicians and health care providers who take a position more responsible and prudent than official Florida government policy are urging mask-wearing indoors in public places for now, and until this latest wave of outbreaks declines significantly.
“We are in a surge,” wrote Ruth Ann Crystal, a physician who issues a weekly Covid report that is disseminated locally by Dr. Stephen Bickel, the medical director at the Flagler Health Department. That report was dated May 27. “The CDC is urging people to wear masks indoors and for those over age 50 to get their latest boosters. There are more people aged 70+ that are hospitalized now than there were during the Delta variant wave.”
Crystal added: “As predicted, Delta airlines now has to cut 100 flights a day due to employee sickness. Most flight attendants are no longer wearing masks and unsurprisingly they are getting COVID which is affecting staffing of flights. If you don’t want to get COVID while traveling, it will be important to wear a mask indoors, and especially when you are in an airplane or other transportation. SARS-CoV-2 variants have become increasingly more contagious.”
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agitator says
NO! CLOTH MASKS DO NOT WORK…Need KN95 or N95 to protect yourself if you are a masker. This is all about the midterm elections….wait and see.
Steve says
Hold your breath while you wait. We’ll let you know
Laurel says
Thank you, FL, for providing us with information. It is clear that our governor does not want us to have accurate information, and reports cases periodically instead of daily. This periodic information is provided to Watson, which calculates cases daily and so the information shows up as zero cases daily. Trump stated the pandemic was a “Democratic hoax” and would be “…gone by Easter.” These politicians have very little in the way of consciences.
I really wish there had been no federal or state mask mandates for the public. Just putting out a mandate causes rebellion, and I think that if it was more of a personal choice, and not political rhetoric, many more people would have been vaccinated early on. I do, however, believe people who worked in health care or personal service should have been mandated. Private industry does have that right.
As much as I enjoy Bill Maher, I wish he would knock off the criticism of people wearing masks, as well as DeSantis calling masks “theater,” no one knows what the wearer is going through. It could be chemotherapy. Let’s just all use our common sense, and get past this pandemic.
Mary Fusco says
Amazingly, no one cared about health care workers for the year they worked without knowing what this virus even was. My daughter is a home health nurse and works out of Baptist. She unknowingly risked her life every day for a year. Then, was mandated to get the vaccine or lose her job. She held out until the last minute for a very good reason. Her dad, took a flu vaccine years ago and contracted Guillian Barre Syndrome, which, if anyone reads their paperwork, is top of the list for side affects for any of these vaccines. He was in the hospital and rehab for almost a year after being totally paralyzed. He was only nearing 50, had to retire from his job and spent the rest of his life with deficits. My daughter, even though she is vaccinated still wears a mask. I am not vaccinated, nor will I ever be and I wear a mask at all times. Common sense does not prevail because everyone wants to get back into their routines. This is why this virus will continue to multiply and circulate.
Eugene Lopes says
Guillain Barre is linked to the Covid virus and NOT the Covid vaccine. As a matter of fact, read about Tommy John (ex-Yankees pitcher) who claimed Covid was a hoax, contracted Covid and then almost died from Guillain Barre.
From the CDC:
CDC monitors GBS cases during each flu season. From data collected, the association between seasonal flu vaccine and GBS has been found to vary from season to season. When there has been an increased risk, it has consistently been in the range of 1-2 additional GBS cases per million flu vaccine doses administered.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33949300/#
FlaglerLive says
Tommy John told ESPN he was not a covid denier. It was his son who claimed Covid was a hoax.
Pete says
GBS is really only associated with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Even that rate is extremely low, 7 or 8 cases per one million doses. Those are pretty good numbers. Also, many make a full recovery. The seasonal flu vaccine can cause it at about 1 per 1 million doses, but people that get the flu, get GBS at a rate of 17 per 1 million cases of infection. Setting to keep in mind. …and just to throw it out there again for any people that are scared of the COVID vaccine, it’s new, not experimental. The mRNA technology used to create the vaccine has been around a long time and only needed to be tweaked to account for COVID.
Robert Carver says
Only the Janssen vaccine poses a GBS risk, the mRNA vaccines do not.
From the JAMA Network:
“Question Are COVID-19 vaccines associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS)?
Findings In this cohort study of surveillance data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink that included 15.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, the unadjusted incidence rate of confirmed GBS in the 1 to 21 days after receiving the Ad.26.COV2.S (Janssen) vaccine was 32.4 per 100 000 person-years, which was significantly higher than the background rate of GBS. The unadjusted incidence rate of confirmed GBS in the 1 to 21 days after mRNA vaccines was 1.3 per 100 000 person-years, which did not differ from the background rate.
Meaning These findings suggest an increased risk of GBS after Ad.26.COV2.S vaccination.”
Laurel says
Mary F.: I am very sorry your husband suffered from the syndrome. However, according to Cleveland Clinic, it is a very rare reaction to the J&J vaccine, and not associated with the mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer). Most people do recover from it. This rare instance should not scare people away from a pandemic that caused some many people to suffocate to death.
I also take issue with your statement that no one cared about the health care workers. We were all overwhelmed at the beginning, trying to figure out what was happening. Personally, if I were in the hospital in a weakened state, I would not want to be subject to a caretaker who was not fully vaccinated.
It is your choice to not be vaccinated. Your daughter also had a choice, and if she lost a job because of it, that too was her choice.
Laurel says
I meant should not scare people away from vaccines to fight the pandemic.
Nanci Whitley says
Your assumption is incorrect. We DID care about health care workers.
NO MORE says
I have gotten ALL the vaccinations and the first BOOSTER shots. I caught the damn virus back in January. I’m over 65 with auto-immune problems. The virus stayed in me for two weeks. Called a few doctor friends who called me in Steroids and Anti-Biotic meds. Started feeling a little better around 15 day of the CRAP. And low and behold I start coughing up green and yellow mucous. YEP, lucky me came down with ” COVID Pneumonia”. DAMN NEAR DIED. Got my Doctor friends ( who tried to get me to go into hospital) to call me in another round of steroids and anti-biotics. Finally after another two weeks of NEAR DEATH sickness the krud eased up on me and I made it thru…… Morale of my story is MAYBE the Vaccines kept me from death–Maybe they didn’t. It was probably just my ” I can beat anything” attitude. Now the CDC wants me to get another Booster……..
WOULD YOU GET ANOTHER ?
Laurel says
No More: I am fully vaccinated, had my first booster, and heading for my second, so my answer to your question is yes. Sorry you got so sick. Knock on wood, both my husband and I have evaded the virus to date. Hope you are feeling better now.
Sherry says
@No More. . . Absolutely! I’ve been boosted twice and will continue to do so as long as it is recommended!
My husband and I continue to mask up (N95) style, when indoors in public places. We only socialize with friends and relatives who are fully vaccinated and boosted. We have managed to avoid Covid, but have friends on the West coast who are currently suffering terrible flu like symptoms from Covid due to exposure to un-vaccinated family members.
Consider the possibility that if you were not vaccinated you would not be here to make your comment at all.
Pissed in PC says
At least we have a health department that cares unlike DeathSantis and quacko Ladapo. The only way I’ve been able to watch the numbers is go to the CDC website. It seems like it started earlier this year than last year.
Mark1 says
Madate masks and vaccines for all who want to got in public! Should have been done years ago. You people would rather have do surfing and public theater than keep your children safe from long covid. Alot of you are reckless with safety and it shows. MASK UP STAY HOME GET VACCINATED
DaleL says
I often wonder how it is that “common” sense seems to be so rare (uncommon). COVID-19 is a respiratory disease. It would seem that common sense would have been to have reviewed the history of other respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis and the 1918 influenza pandemic. The result would have been an immediate emphasis on ventilation. Early information from China indicated that this disease was rarely spread outdoors, particularly during daylight hours.
Despite this knowledge, governments (including in Florida) closed beaches, parks, and outdoor pools.
Reducing the initial exposure to a pathogen and the method of that exposure can greatly influence the course of a disease. Early studies in 2020 found the most severe outcomes resulted from prolonged exposures indoors from singing or yelling. This early information is confirmed by the fact that: “The sharp rise tracks with Florida’s and Flagler’s previous waves, which have tended to parallel the beginning of the warmest months (June and early July) and the coldest months (December-January), when people mingle more indoors.”
Common sense: 1. Get vaccinated, 2. Want to party, sing, yell, do it outside. 3. Indoors, either mask up or limit yourself to gatherings that are quiet and calm., 4. If sick, stay home, use a self test.