November 18 update: 140 new positive tests, 3 deaths

BY JENNIFER CABRERA
According to the stateĀ dashboard, Alachua County reported an increase of 140 positive COVID-19 tests on an above-average number of test results, giving an official test positivity rate of 4.95%. Three new deaths were reported.
The new deaths:
- 73-year-old male who tested positive on October 15 and has “UNKNOWN” in both the emergency room and hospital fields
- 72-year-old female who tested positive on October 11, visited an emergency room, and was hospitalized
- 70-year-old male who tested positive on October 3, visited an emergency room, but was not hospitalized
None were in long-term care.
Of the people whose positive tests came back yesterday, only 7 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 91 deaths have been reported in the county, 34 of which were in long-term care.
The overall number of people (from all counties) hospitalized here for COVID-19 decreased from 89 to 81.
State COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased slightly to 3,352 today.
The state reported 7,925 new positive tests (official positivity rate of 8.16%) and a net increase of 87 deaths, 21 of which were from long-term care facilities.
Changes in the number of deaths were reported on 45 different dates, going back to July 25. Changes by month: July (+2), August (+11-1), September (+6), October (+16), November (+53)
The peaks are on July 30 (235) and August 4 (237), and the 7-day moving average peak is August 5 (225).
The 7-day average plateau between July 25 and August 7 has been stable since I started reporting the peaks on August 27.

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), and the official positive rate yesterday was 8.16%.

In Alachua County, the official positivity rate was 4.95%.

This chart shows the number of negative tests reported in Alachua County by day:

The 7-day moving average of new cases is at 77 through yesterdayās cases. Here is the 7-day average of new cases for the past 14 days:
