CDC places about half of Florida at high risk for COVID transmission

9 Florida counties — together with the Tampa Bay and South Florida areas — are at excessive danger for COVID transmission, in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

The CDC replace means about half of the state’s inhabitants is at a excessive degree. Final week, it was at 29 p.c and the earlier 9 weeks it was at zero, in keeping with Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist with the College of South Florida Faculty of Public Well being.

The counties are: Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Pasco, Sarasota, Alachua, Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Seaside.

The Florida numbers are a part of a nationwide surge arriving forward of the Memorial Day vacation, as the varsity yr wraps up and People put together for summer season holidays. As such, many individuals have returned to their pre-pandemic routines.

Researchers blame a brand new variant now dominant in the USA that spreads sooner than its omicron predecessors, is adept at escaping immunity, and would possibly probably trigger extra critical illness.

Case counts are as excessive as they’ve been since mid-February, and people figures are probably a serious undercount due to unreported constructive house check outcomes and asymptomatic infections.

“I do know there’s been a whole lot of dialogue about these indicators this week as a result of, one, they’ve been steadily growing for fairly some time now, and two, a number of Florida counties have been improper final time as a result of a ‘processing error.’ No such footnote this week,” Salemi says.

At excessive degree, the CDC recommends sporting a masks indoors in public and on public transportation, staying present on COVID vaccines and getting examined if exhibiting signs. In case you are at excessive danger for extreme sickness, take into account taking further precautions.

For the primary time since early February, Florida has recorded greater than 10,000 new circumstances of the coronavirus on consecutive days, in keeping with the CDC. Over the previous week, the state has averaged practically 9,200 new circumstances a day. On Tuesday, 12,087 folks examined constructive in Florida and one other 11,439 on Wednesday.

Meantime, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers reported Thursday that greater than 2,300 persons are hospitalized in Florida with COVID, up 23 p.c from per week in the past.

The variant is a member of the omicron household, however it carries a mutation referred to as delta that was a characteristic of the variant that was dominant in the midst of 2021. This seems to permit the virus to flee immunity from vaccines and prior an infection, particularly if somebody was contaminated within the large omicron wave that swept the world late final yr and early this yr.

The present numbers, nevertheless, stay considerably decrease than early within the yr, when the extremely contagious omicron variant swept throughout the state.

As of Wednesday, the CDC has reported 6,114,014 constructive circumstances in Florida.

Data from Well being Information Florida’s Julio Ochoa, Carl Lisciandrello, Stephanie Colombini and the Related Press was used on this report.

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