Baby dies of COVID-19, a first for Orange County
An infant died from COVID-19 in Orange County, a sobering first for the county since the pandemic began about 18 months ago.
Raul Pino, state health officer in the county, said he could not give more details because of laws protecting an individual’s health information.
He said the child, under a year old, could be more easily identified if other details were revealed such as exact age, ethnicity and gender.
The baby’s death was among 56 from COVID-19 reported to Florida health officials over the past four days, raising the pandemic’s death toll among Orange County residents to 1,780, including 337 in August, the deadliest month so far, Pino said at a briefing Monday morning with reporters.
“This is not a walk in the park,” he said of the virus’ impact on children. “Younger people tend to do a lot better [than older adults] but they can still get very sick.”
Through August, the median age of county residents who died from COVID was 71.
Of the 56 people who died over the past four days, 10 were fully vaccinated.
Other health data suggests the surge from the virus’ delta variant is waning with hospitalizations and positivity rates declining.
The county’s 14-day positivity rate has fallen to 13.3% from a high of above 20% four weeks ago, a hopeful sign, though the figure is still far above the 5% threshold at which the World Health Organization considers a community to have the virus under control. The county was under that mark in June.
“I would say we’re not out of the woods yet but it seems to be slowing down, much slower,” Pino said.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said about 71% of county residents age 12 and older have received at least one shot of vaccine.
As of Aug. 10, 64.3% of eligible people had gotten at least one dose of vaccine.
“We still want to get that number much higher here within our community,” the mayor said.
Pino credited “a layered approach” for declining infections, after a spike in cases led to crowded intensive care units and morgues last month.
“We took all the steps,” he said, reciting a list of reasons which included an increase in vaccinations and the opening of a monoclonal antibody therapy site at Camping World Stadium to treat COVID-infected people more quickly. “That all has a compounding effect. It’s not one single thing.”
