Virus deaths climbing as delta spreads

Demings suspends youth sports in Orange County

Deaths are beginning to climb in Orange County, a grim result of record-setting hospitalizations as the delta variant rampages across the state.

In total, 17 people have been reported dead since Monday, with 15 of those coming in August.

Also, Mayor Jerry

Demings reported that an Orange

County corrections officer died with the virus, the second in about two weeks amid the surge.

Also of concern, seven of the newly reported deaths are among vaccinated

people, said Dr. Raul Pino, the health officer in Orange County. He speculated these people were elderly or had pre-existing conditions that may have suppressed the immune response to the vaccine.

“A vaccinated person who has pre-existing conditions should be extremely careful with this variant,” Pino said. “It’s critically important to protect our seniors, even if they’re vaccinated.”

Federal health officials are expected to sign off on third doses in the coming days for the most vulnerable — those who have received organ transplants or cancer treatments — who likely didn’t receive adequate immune responses after vaccination.

Pino said his office was monitoring 40 outbreaks at long-term care facilities, which include 356 total cases. Health officials have aggressively monitored these facilities because residents are almost entirely elderly and extremely vulnerable to the virus.

Because of that, just one case in a long-term care facility is considered an outbreak, Pino said, and he urged staff at these establishments to get vaccinated to protect patients.

In addition to the reported death of the corrections officer, 36 jail employees have the virus, Demings said.

Officials had been bracing for an expected climb in deaths, typically a lagging indicator of the severity of an outbreak. Deaths tend to climb within weeks of spikes in hospitalizations, which the region has seen throughout August.

In a briefing by the White House COVID-19 task force Thursday, federal officials said Florida has accounted for more infections than the 30 states with the lowest transmission combined over the past week.

“Florida and Texas alone have accounted for nearly 40% of new hospitalizations across the country,” said Jeff Zients, who coordinates the task force.

Demings, in his own briefing Thursday evening, said all county-run youth sports leagues are suspended until further notice, including all games and practices. The mayor said 1,100 athletes are impacted and cited that children 11 and under cannot be vaccinated.

Across Central Florida, 30 children are hospitalized with COVID-19 including six in ICU beds, hospital officials have said. At the high school level, Edgewater High School’s football team had practices called off through Aug. 23 including its preseason game scheduled for Aug. 20, due to the virus.

Evans High School’s team is also in a COVID shutdown, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Orange County Public Schools’ COVID-19 dashboard shows 333 total cases so far this school year, which began this week. Of those, 203 are employees and 128 are students. Fifty-nine people are in quarantine, it shows.

Scott Howat, an OCPS spokesman, said half of the infected employees tested positive before school started.

Now, just more than 65% of eligible residents in the county have at least one shot of vaccine protection, Pino said. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, 310 shots were issued at the new Camping World Stadium site, he said.