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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