February 16 COVID data update

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

[Editor’s note: This information is provided to put the COVID-19 data in context and show trends. We are presenting the data as reported by Florida Department of Health with the understanding that the data is messy, and each day’s update changes multiple previous days. We believe that individuals should have access to as much information as possible so they can make decisions about their risks; you can find our opinions about government actions in the COVID-19 category on the site.]

According to the state dashboard, Alachua County reported an increase of 57 positive COVID-19 tests today (2 from September), with an official test positivity rate of 3.14% on a day with a low number of test results. Two new deaths were reported.

The new deaths:

• 102-year-old female who visited an emergency room and was hospitalized; she tested positive on July 5 (although date of death isn’t given for each case, none of today’s deaths happened before January 16)
• 81-year-old male who visited an emergency room and was hospitalized; he tested positive on December 29

None were in long-term care.

Of the people whose positive tests came back yesterday, 6 were 65 or older (this is the important number to track because those are the people who are more likely to have bad outcomes).

A total of 201 deaths have been reported in the county, 59 of which were in long-term care.

The overall number of people (from all counties) hospitalized here for COVID-19 increased slightly from 85 to 89. This is down from a peak of 256 on January 13.

State COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased slightly from 4,676 to 4,646 today. This is down from a peak of 7,763 on January 13.

The state reported 6,297 new positive tests (official positivity rate of 6.61%) and a net increase of 220 deaths, 48 of which were from long-term care facilities.

Changes in deaths were reported on 35 different dates, going back to July 27.

Changes in the number of deaths by month: July (-1), October (-1), November (-1), January (+60-1), February (+164)

The first-wave peak was on August 4 (240), and the 7-day moving average peak was August 5 (227). The second-wave peak so far is January 15 (204); the 7-day moving average peak is January 18 (187). These are expected to keep changing.

This chart uses different colors to show how the reported deaths stack up by date:

Here is the full chart for context:

The state also publishes a chart of the percentage of new tests that are positive by day (this chart is for the whole state), showing the trend over the past 14 days.

This chart shows the trend in positivity rate for Alachua County.

This chart shows the number of negative tests reported in Alachua County by day, which gives an idea of the volume of testing:

The 7-day moving average of new cases is at 56.9 through yesterday’s cases. Here is the 7-day average of new cases for the past 14 days:

The state has vaccinated a total of 2,430,637 people (1,135,963 have received the complete series). Vaccines were administered first to healthcare and front-line workers, with vaccines being rolled out to people 65 and older now.

Here is the age distribution for the state, with gray bars showing yesterday’s vaccinations and the green bars showing cumulative vaccinations.

Alachua County has vaccinated a total of 42,331 people, over 15.5% of the population (24,521, about 9% of the population, have received the complete series). Here is the age distribution for the county, with gray bars showing yesterday’s vaccinations and the green bars showing cumulative vaccinations (the negative number for 75-84 is likely a data error or a correction of a previous data error).

This is a comparison of the age distributions of state and county vaccinations.