JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Data released Saturday by the Florida Department of Health showed the state’s first dip below a 5% positivity rate since the start of 2021.
Many experts consider a 5% positivity rate to be the threshold for community spread of the virus, so getting and staying below that number is a major goal for state health officials.
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But officials are also quick to point out that positivity rates should really be tracked in two-week trends or longer to show if they’re really holding steady in the state. The state’s 14-day average is a 5.89% positivity rate.
The state on Saturday reported 4,690 new cases of the coronavirus for a total of 1,940,897 COVID-19 cases.
Florida also reported an additional 107 deaths in Saturday’s data, bringing the state’s total to 32,200 deaths since the pandemic hit Florida just over a year ago.
Of those deaths, five were recorded in Northeast Florida: two in Nassau County (116 total deaths), two in Putnam County (130) and one in St. Johns County (200).
Duval County has recorded 89,637 total cases, including 146 cases that were reported Saturday.
As of Saturday afternoon, 3,352 people were hospitalized in Florida with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
Common symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, breathing trouble, sore throat, muscle pain, and loss of taste or smell. Most people develop only mild symptoms. But some people, usually those with other medical complications, develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia.
So far, 3,462,520 total people have been vaccinated so far in Florida with 1,560,206 receiving at least the first dose of vaccine.