Officials warn of rapidly rising cases
Orange County mayor preaches caution to avoid more restrictions
Facing the sharp reality of a scenario public officials warned about — rapidly rising new cases of the coronavirus as Central Florida’s economy reopens — Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings wrestled Monday with how to intervene and prevent infections from overwhelming hospitals.
Demings said he was not yet worried enough to shut down businesses or order residents to stay home again because hospitals still have room to take more patients, but warned a second round of more drastic restrictions was possible if the numbers keep rising.
“We’re not there yet,” Demings said. “This is why we’re coming to our residents today and saying, we need all of their help to avoid that becoming a greater probability.”
He pleaded for people to wear masks and said he was considering whether to write an executive order requiring people to do so — though it was unclear how that would be enforced. Orange has set single-day records for new virus cases each of the previous five days with 186 reported on Monday. Officials also announced a new death on Monday, the county’s 47th. For the week that ended Sunday, 5.1% of virus tests came back positive in Orange County, more than double the rate of the prior week, and the highest levels since the week of April 5.
State data shows 1,758 infections were reported across Florida on Monday while seven more people died, bringing Florida’s death toll to 2,938.
And cases have grown across Central Florida since Gov. Ron DeSantis began to allow the state
to reopen in early May.
Seminole County has seen six consecutive days of at least 29 new cases — including 45 on Saturday — after fewer than 13 each day earlier in June. Positivity rates hadn’t exceeded 2.2% the first eight days of June, but have since climbed, ranging from 4.5% to 9% each day since.
In Lake County, which has an outbreak at its jail, there has been sporadic increases in new cases during the previous week, though the rate of positive tests has hovered between 2.2% and 3.9%, with the exception of June 12, when 64 new cases were reported with a rate of 9%. Similarly, Osceola has seen its rate of positive cases hover at about 3% for the previous week.
Dr. Gregory Poland, an infectious disease specialist with the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, said timing on policies to reduce community transmission of the virus is key.
“It should be now. It’s when you start seeing a surge of cases,” Poland said. “You don’t wait until your hospitals are at a breaking point. It’s too late then.”
Like Demings, he noted not enough people are wearing masks or taking other precautions such as keeping physical distance from others and washing hands frequently.
“We know what to do. We just don’t want to do it,” he said. “It’s ludicrous to see pictures of bars full and tourist attractions open….if communities want to do that, they have to realize we’ll have to start over.”
Demings said he spoke Monday with physicians from across the area, including from AdventHealth and Orlando Health, the region’s two largest hospital systems. They said they’ve seen an increase in visits and hospitalizations as new cases have ramped up, but still have capacity.
“If we were seeing where we were about to exceed our local capacity, we’d have to do something much more drastic,” he said.
While the number of people tested has increased significantly in recent weeks, that doesn’t account entirely for the rising number of new cases, said Dr. Raul Pino, officer for the Florida Department of Health in Orange.
Those infected with the virus are also trending far younger than during the initial stages of the pandemic, and the median age has dipped to 30 years old here, Pino said. He said some infections have been linked to local bars and nightclubs. He wouldn’t name the businesses and didn’t say how many cases were found.
Pino said residents voluntarily taking precautions could prevent the need for a second shutdown.
He also said he needs a larger staff to perform contact tracing, which attempts to retrace the steps of infected people to notify those who may have been exposed and prevent them from potentially exposing others.