COVID-19 vaccination numbers rise steeply across Alachua County and Florida

Danielle Ivanov, The Gainesville Sun
·4 min read
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In the first week that COVID-19 vaccines were made available in Alachua County and across Florida for young children ages 5-11, the number of people getting vaccinated increased sharply, almost doubling the state's count and more than doubling the county's.

At the same time, Alachua County's number of new positive COVID-19 cases also rose for the first time in a month.

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Here are the latest COVID-19 numbers available for the county and state:

Alachua County

According to Friday's COVID-19 Weekly Situation Report from the Florida Department of Health, Alachua County had 177 new COVID-19 cases over the past seven days, rising for the first time in four weeks.

The county's new case positivity rate also increased by half a percentage point, reaching 2.5%.

Meanwhile, the number of people vaccinated rose for the third week in a row and more than doubled the previous seven days' count, hitting 1,484.

The county now has a total of 167,730 people vaccinated, accounting for about 65% of the vaccine-eligible population — those ages 5 and up — and 61% of the whole population.

Alachua County now has 39,810 cumulative cases, according to the report. At least 452 of those are variant of concern (VOC) cases confirmed by FDOH in a public records request placed by lawyers for Gannett, the company that owns The Sun.

The latest variant report shared with The Sun contains data through Nov. 4 and showed that 362 — about 80% — of Alachua County's identified VOC cases were caused by the delta B.1.617.2 variant.

The county has had three delta variant deaths, the report stated, including two white men, aged 27 and 48, and a 93-year-old white woman.

FDOH does not publicly report COVID-19 deaths by county anymore and has not since switching to the weekly instead of daily reports in early June. However, a federal document called the COVID-19 Community Profile Report published Thursday showed that Alachua County had 536 cumulative COVID-19 deaths.

County-level information from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data has continuously reported hospitalization numbers. It listed 26 new COVID-19 patient admissions for the week as of Thursday and stated that amount was a decline of 16% from the previous seven days.

The county dashboard showed 22 COVID-19-positive adult inpatients between UF Health Shands Hospital and North Florida Regional Medical Center on Friday, including eight in intensive care and seven on ventilators.

As of Sunday afternoon, the Alachua County Public Schools COVID-19 dashboard reported five student COVID-19 cases so far for November. There also were 59 students listed in quarantine.

The University of Florida reported 29 new COVID-19 cases between Nov. 5-11, the FDOH weekly report timeline. The UF dashboard listed 13,389 total COVID-19 cases between March 18, 2020, and Friday, including 2,500 employee cases and 8,637 student cases. It also showed 148 UF affiliates currently in isolation or quarantine as of Friday, including 22 employees and 93 students.

Here’s a breakdown of new cases in surrounding counties:

  • Bradford: +3 (5,337 total)

  • Columbia: +28 (14,937 total)

  • Dixie: +4 (2,960 total)

  • Gilchrist: +8 (3,172 total)

  • Lafayette: +3 (2,222 total)

  • Levy: +19 (7,017 total)

  • Marion: +128 (57,048 total)

  • Putnam: +16 (12,811 total)

  • Suwannee: +21 (9,239 total)

  • Union: +4 (3,071 total)

Florida

The state of Florida continued its downward case trend and listed 10,746 new cases in its Friday report. Its positivity rate fell as well from 2.6% to 2.5%.

The number of people getting vaccinated throughout Florida last week sharply increased from 56,500 to 109,459, the report listed. About 67% of Florida's eligible population and just under 64% of its total population has been vaccinated.

The state added 363 COVID-19 deaths to its cumulative total in the Friday FDOH report for a new count of 60,697.

According to the latest variant of concern data available to The Sun, which includes data through Nov. 4, about 74% of Florida's reported 48,300 VOC cases are from the delta COVID-19 strain. Around 2% of those have resulted in hospitalization, and 1.3% have died.

The 483 delta variant deaths in the state include 195 women and 287 men ranging from 23-99 years old and one 9-year-old girl. Five had traveled, 147 had contact with a confirmed case and 268 were hospitalized. Slightly over 340 were white, 80 were Black and 122 were Hispanic.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Alachua County, Florida COVID-19 vaccination numbers increase