January 21 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 138 positive COVID-19 tests today (10 of them were from September), with an official test positivity rate of 4.65%. Two new deaths were reported.

The new deaths are a 76-year-old male who tested positive on November 12, didn’t visit an emergency room, and wasn’t hospitalized; and an 88-year-old male who tested positive on December 15, didn’t visit an emergency room, and wasn’t hospitalized. One was in long-term care.

Of the people whose positive tests came back yesterday, 15 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 158 deaths have been reported in the county, 49 of which were in long-term care.

The overall number of people (from all counties) hospitalized here for COVID-19 increased from 217 to 220.

State COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased from 7,147 to 7,026 today.

The state reported 12,873 new positive tests (official positivity rate of 8.54%) and a net increase of 161 deaths, 44 of which were from long-term care facilities.

Changes in deaths were reported on 36 different dates, going back to August 17.

Changes in the number of deaths by month: August (+3), October (+1), December (+23), January (+134)

The peaks are on July 30/31 (235) and August 4 (239), and the 7-day moving average peak is August 5 (227).

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 136.3 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 1,183,012 people (123,971 have received the complete series), and Alachua County has vaccinated 24,374 people, about 9% of the population (6,223, over 2% of the population, 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; age distribution for the county is not available: