SARASOTA – The number don’t lie….Florida has seen a more than tenfold increase in average daily cases since the state reopened in May. The death rate may be steadily going down but, on Thursday Florida broke its record with 156 deaths reported in a single day. And this past weekend shattered it single-day case count by reporting 15,000 new cases.
Leaving some to question Gov. Ron DeSantis choice in opening the state rather early in the pandemic.
“By doing that particularly when the cases are rising and then relaxing some of the limitations has caused for a larger spike.” said Kristopher Fennie. “Particularly people gathering.”
Fennie, an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at New College of Florida, says while more people are getting tested across the state there are several components to the recent spike in cases. Especially now among young people.
“Obviously if you test more, you’re going to get more cases,” said Fennie. “But clearly that’s not a sufficient explanation for the amounts we’re seeing and the increase that we’re seeing.”
Fennie says in both Manatee & Sarasota County those less than 18-years-old are testing positive at a higher rate, that’s according to the Florida COVID-19 Dashboard.
In Manatee 43.7% of those who have been tested were positive and in Sarasota 28%. But Fennie says the numbers keep changing as contact tracing has become a challenge.
“The idea is we think that there should be 30 contact tracers per 100,000 people,” said Fennie. “And so we really should have 5,000 now. The last I heard it was about 1,500.”
But there are more factors that have played a role in the recent spike seen across the state. Hospitals are starting to almost reach capacity, including three in Manatee.
And while more are being tested, its retesting that will help bring the number of cases down. So Fennie says as of now if Florida doesn’t make changes soon it could just become the next epicenter, but there is always hope.
“We need to be very aggressive in our public health plans and what we’re doing. That means being more strict with social distancing, with mask wearing,” said Fennie. “But that would help a great deal to bring down the number of cases.”
