COVID isn’t over and will probably never be over as we continue to learn to live with it. However, the numbers are very encouraging.
Quick Stats:
- 25,640 new cases reported last week across the entire State of Florida
- Only 119 deaths last week
As you can see below, we had over 400,000 cases of COVID during the beginning of the year. That number has dropped to just over 25,000 cases last week. We hope this continues to be the case, but as we said before, the past two years have had a winter surge and a summer surge. Hopefully, we don’t see a summer surge. And if we do see a surge, hopefully it’s not as deadly as the alpha and delta variants.
Fatalities continue to come down as cases drop further. Again, just 119 fatalities reported across the state last week.
As we look at the chart below, there have been over 800,000 reported cases of COVID among kids under 16 years old over the last 2 years. Only 40 kids (nearly all with an underlying condition) have died from COVID. On the other hand, there have been fewer reported cases of seniors 65+ with COVID at 749,843 over the last two years. But this group has had the lion share of fatalities with 52,499 fatalities in Florida. 75% of all the COVID fatalities in Florida have been from seniors 65 and older. The good news is that the case fatality rate has dropped for seniors over the last two years. The Case Fatality Rate used to be closer to 10%. Today, it stands at 7%. In other words, the COVID-19 shot along with improved medical treatment and the weakening strength of the OMICRON variant has proven to improve the survivability of COVID among seniors.
The CDC has modified its mask recommendations. For Miami-Dade County, the CDC reports us as a Medium risk:
In Miami-Dade County, Florida, community level is Medium.
- If you are at high risk for severe illness, talk to your healthcare provider about whether you need to wear a mask and take other precautions
- Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
- Get tested if you have symptoms
