Orange officials “don’t want a repeat” of Memorial Day on July 4 weekend.
As Fourth of July nears, virus numbers surging
Orange County officials urged residents Monday to keep the coronavirus pandemic top of mind as they plan celebrations for the 4th of July, after cases surged in the weeks after Memorial Day weekend.
Nearly 80% of Orange County’s total cases have come since the long holiday weekend that ended May 25, when health officials believe many people in Central Florida and across the country began to relax their own virus precautions and began to see friends and family again.
In the weeks leading up to Memorial Day, Orange County saw weeks of single-digit cases each day and an overall positivity rate of less than 3%.
Since then, cases have skyrocketed, even reaching more than 1,000 cases in a single day last Thursday.
“We don’t want a repeat of Memorial Day,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said he’s hopeful that a number of changes in recent weeks will help reduce the spread of the virus this weekend. It’s been more than a week since he signed an order requiring people to wear masks in public in Orange County, including inside businesses. Traditional fireworks celebrations across the region, such as one held each year at Lake Eola, were cancelled. And, on Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration said bars could no longer serve alcohol on site after allowing them to reopen June 5.
“What we have now is the expe
rience of having these thousands of additional new cases in Orange County alone … so people have been sensitized now,” Demings said, speculating the surge may have made believers out of some who downplayed the virus earlier. “It’s marched down just about every street in the county…it has marched into additional households…and workplaces.”
Orange County reported its lowest single-day number of new cases in a week with 345 found on Sunday. But the data released Monday also shows about half as many tests counted as prior days. The rate of positive tests reported Sunday was about 13%.
Rates of positive tests were higher last week than any other week of the pandemic, and from the first week to the last week of June, weekly positive rates soared 625%.
Last week, 16.6% of tests came back positive, compared to just 2.3% the first week of the month.
County officials also lamented surpassing 10,000 total cases Monday, and Dr. Raul Pino, the local health officer, said a 57th person has died from COVID-19, though he didn’t yet have more information about the person. As cases surged, ZIP codes including and surrounding the University of Central Florida were among the highest, where mostly young people were testing positive. Pino said his staff had linked hundreds of new cases to bars and outings, including many in east Orange County near the school.
At UCF, 154 people connected to the university, mostly students, had tested positive as of last Wednesday, the most recent date for which data was available. Most of those —132 cases— have also emerged since June 1.
Pino said 193 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in the county, with 27 of them occupying ICU beds, up slightly from 185 who were in hospital beds Thursday.
Amid calls from some to implement stricter orders as cases surge across the state, Pino said it’s not realistic to close down every few weeks or months to control the virus, but instead, citizens need to wear masks, wash their hands, and stay apart when possible.
“The reality is that we cannot lockdown and open up every two weeks or three months. It will ruin us,” he said. “We have to learn how to live with it, how to protect ourselves and protect the most vulnerable.” Annie Martin of the Sentinel staff contributed.