October 20 update: 79 new positive tests, 1 death

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

According to the state dashboard, Alachua County reported an increase of 79 positive COVID-19 tests, with an official test positivity rate of 5.78%. One new death was reported.

The new death is a 76-year-old male who tested positive on August 3 and was in long-term care.

Of the people whose positive tests came back yesterday, 14 were 65 or older, and 42 (53%) were college-aged.

A total of 74 deaths have been reported in the county, 33 of which were in long-term care. Paul Myers told the county commission last Tuesday that they’ve determined two of our deaths were non-Florida residents, so they will be removed from the total, but that hasn’t happened yet.

The overall number of people (from all counties) hospitalized here for COVID-19 decreased from 60 to 57.

State COVID-19 hospitalizations increased to 2,095 today.

The state reported 3,662 new positive tests (official positivity rate of 6.17%) and a net increase of 84 deaths, 22 of which were from long-term care facilities.

Changes in the number of deaths were reported on 44 different dates, going back to July 11. Changes by month: July (+3); August (+15); September (+22); October (+45-1).

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 6.17%.

In Alachua County, the official positivity rate was 5.78%.

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

The 7-day moving average of new cases is at 72.3 through yesterday’s cases. Here is the 7-day average of new cases for the past 14 days: