Virus infections going younger in Central Fla.

Masks are required Saturday in Orange as new order takes effect

The coronavirus pandemic is aging in reverse in Central Florida and across the state, growing younger as the economy reopens and the public health emergency drags toward its fifth month.

The median age of newly infected people in Florida is now 35 compared to 58 for the week that began March 8 when the state began tracking the data. In Central Florida counties, the median age has dropped even lower: to 31 in Osceola; 29 in Orange and 26 in Seminole.

Those numbers combined with new heat maps released by the counties that show which ZIP codes are seeing the most cases today paint a new picture of who is becoming infected — younger people in the area surrounding the UCF campus in east Orange and southeast Seminole

as well as people who live in neighborhoods in Southchase in south Orange, Millenia in central Orange and Pine Hills in west Orange.

But public health officials say the new data raises the same old questions surrounding community spread of the virus: How long will it take to spread to an older population who are more likely to suffer severe illness or die? And can the spread be stopped before then?

“This is a younger pandemic now. My concern is these people have a lot of mobility and … going back home and infecting grandma and grandpa,” Dr. Raul Pino, the Florida Department of Health’s officer in Orange, said this week. “The concern is not even that the numbers are increasing…this is a young population … for the most part they will all do well. The concern is the more people we have infected, the higher the chances are it jumps to an assisted living facility and these places don’t

do well.”

Earlier this week, as part of his office’s regular investigation of new cases, Pino said he called about 30 people who recently tested positive to try to pinpoint how they became infected and where they had been.

Pino said their stories were similar: Groups of mostly young people going out to bars, not wearing masks and likely infecting their friends and other revelers.

In some instances, he said people visited multiple bars in a night, including some in downtown Orlando. Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed bars to reopen on June 5, about a month after allowing people to begin dining inside restaurants again in early May.

“We have the same people hopping from bar to bar downtown and we can trace that individual that is positive and the new cases coming out of those cases,” he said.

At the same time, concerns about the opening of theme parks contributing to virus spread so far have not been realized. Pino said he hasn’t linked any cases to the June 5 opening of Universal Orlando, SeaWorld’s reopening June 11 or Disney Springs, which began opening May 20.

The theme parks require guests and employees to wear masks and undergo temperature checks and are limiting admissions to keep more physical distance between people on rides. A lot of theme park activities are also outside, where experts have said virus spread is less risky than in enclosed spaces.

Bars, however, are indoors where it’s harder to keep physical distance between people.

And masks weren’t required in downtown Orlando or Orange County until Saturday when a new order takes effect.

There is an exemption, though for people who are eating or drinking.

In addition to the ZIP codes near UCF, others showing a surge in cases are 32839 near Millenia, 32837 and 32824, which include Hunters Creek and Southchase, as well as 32818 and 32808, which together cover Pine Hills.

County Commissioner Maribel Gomez-Cordero said she monitors cases in her district daily, and has paid particularly close attention to the 32824 ZIP code, bounded by State Road 528 to the north and Osceola County to the south between Orlando International Airport and Florida’s Turnpike.

That ZIP has 220 positive cases, the most of any in Orange County throughout the pandemic and has reported 56 new cases in the two-week period between June 4 to June 17.

“This one is a very high population of Hispanics,” she said, but didn’t have an explanation on why cases have been on the rise. The ZIP code is 62% Hispanic, census data shows.

She said she wants to see more testing offered there soon, and Pino told her to help him find a site to do so, she said.

In Osceola County, health officials have seen a recent increase in 34741, also about 65% Hispanic and west of U.S. Highway 441 and south of Osceola Parkway.

For the week ending June 13, the ZIP had 20 new cases. The local health officer, Vianca McCluskey, said the jump in cases there could be the result of the virus moving about Osceola

as it has in other counties.

“Even though individuals reside in a ZIP code, that doesn’t mean they acquired in that particular ZIP code,” she said.

McCluskey said some residents seem to be tiring of preventative measures, which also could play a role in increased cases. The county has been under a mask order for two months.

Osceola reported 41 new cases countywide on Friday, its most in at least two weeks, and saw 11% of its tests come back positive.

Seminole County has seen its positivity rate jump into the double-digits everyday this week since Tuesday. Of the 337 cases reported since Monday,

185 people are between the ages of 18 and 30, the county reported. Another 124 are ages 31 to 64.

Orange County reported 340 new cases of coronavirus Friday and 129 more cases than Thursday.

That brought Orange’s rate of positive tests to about 15% on Friday, the highest its seen since April 1, and its second-highest single day ever.

The 32839 ZIP code in southwest Orlando, east of Interstate 4, north of Oak Ridge Road and west of Orange Avenue, has 72 new cases in the past two weeks, according to the Department of Health.

And the two ZIP codes encompassing Pine Hills each have 57 new cases, though at least one resident, Bertina Busch, speculated those cases may be attributed to robust testing in the area, including at Camping World Stadium, Barnett Park and Evans High.

She said she sees residents wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

“They’ve blitzed our community with testing,” said Busch, who publishes a community newspaper in the area.

Busch said she took an antibody test, which confirmed her suspicion that she had the virus in early January, but recovered without hospitalization.

Pino suspects that could be the case for many of the people who acquire the virus now. So far, hospitals have said COVID-19 patients remain low and they have enough room to handle an increase in patients, a point emphasized by DeSantis during a press conference on Friday.

“We’re not concerned about hospitalization, we’re not concerned about death rate — it hasn’t increased,” Pino said.

“We’re not concerned about ventilators, we have plenty…the concern is [young people] are going to pass it and then what’s going to happen?”