Deaths from COVID-19 in Florida take off amid undercounted cases in BA.5 surge
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Florida logged more COVID-19 deaths in the past two weeks than it has in months.
The state's death toll climbed by an average of 452 each week from July 15 through Friday, Florida Department of Health figures show. That's the most since late March, when the giant wave of infections caused by the coronavirus' omicron variant was ebbing.
Since then, omicron subvariants have fueled the latest surge of infections statewide. The original omicron strain caused Florida's death toll to spike by more than 1,000 weekly during its height. Same with the delta variant last summer.
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Last week: COVID hospitalizations, deaths on the rise in latest Florida BA.5 surge
The omicron subvariant BA.5 has fueled Florida's current summer surge.
Unlike previous surges, this one has been vastly undercounted. The rise of at-home testing has helped lead to fewer tests being done by professionals, meaning that government agencies count fewer positive test results.
'Ninja' COVID variant leading to positivity rates over 20%
While the number of new COVID cases has averaged about 74,000 a week in Florida from June 17 through the week ended Friday, the percentage of tests coming back positive has grown from 17.4% back then to 20.7%, state health officials report.
BA.5 accounts for more than 80% of new cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
The number of COVID-positive patients in hospitals statewide continues to hover above 4,000. Florida's patient count has not been lower than that since July 11.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said in January that his administration would differentiate between patients who go to the hospital because of the disease and those who test positive while hospitalized. That has yet to happen.
What does sewage data show about COVID rates?
Sewage data from across the state is not encouraging.
Coronavirus concentrations have risen in Miami-Dade County since the end of June, Boston-based laboratory Biobot Analytics reports.
It's a similar deal in Tampa Bay, where Pinellas County reports higher levels of the virus in wastewater. But neighboring Hillsborough County found a deep dive in viral particles in its wastewater between July 13 and Wednesday.
Orange County and neighboring Seminole County also reported declines of the pathogen in their sewage facilities this week.
Florida vaccine rates stagnant
Florida's vaccination count has barely budged since the state Health Department's previous biweekly COVID report. While BA.5 seems to evade some of the immunity from vaccinations, scientist emphasize that the vaccinations are a major deterrent of severe disease.
State health officials have logged 19,125 new vaccinations per week since July 15.
In total, more than 15.9 million people statewide have gotten at least one shot in their arms. That covers about 74% of Florida's population, including an estimated 1.5% of children younger than 5 years old, state health officials say.
More than 7.8 million people statewide have gotten boosters.
COVID has infected almost 6.8 million Floridians and killed at least 77,565 since the pandemic began, the state Health Department reported Friday.
That death toll does not include more than 3,000 fatalities between March and October that physicians labeled as COVID deaths, but the state Health Department did not.
Chris Persaud is The Palm Beach Post's data reporter. Email him at cpersaud@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida COVID deaths spike amid surge: hospitalizations, vaccine rates
