JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — New numbers released Friday from the Department of Health show 6430 new cases in Duval County this week.
”All of the projections show it’s going to continue to go up,” explains Dr. Mohammad Reza, local infectious disease expert.
Duval County remains one of the highest places in the state for new COVID-19 cases, with a roughly 26 percent positivity rate.
He says local hospitals are overwhelmed with the number of hospitalizations were seeing across the board.
”We are already back up to the level of admissions that we saw at the peak of this pandemic and that’s the scary part and it doesn’t look like there’s an end in sight either.” Dr Reza has been treating COVID patients since the pandemic began.
”We are seeing this firsthand and we want to avoid the tragedies that we are seeing on a daily basis in our hospitals.
”Baptist Health South opening 20 more beds to care for the increased number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital.
At all five Baptist hospitals, there are currently 349 COVID patients, 74 of which are in the ICU.
It’s a similar story at UF Health. On July 14th, UF Health had 68 COVID patients.
As of Friday, it climbed to 150—an all-time high.
We’re told the average age of deaths was 69, it’s now dropped to 57.
”This virus doesn’t care. It’s ruthless, it’s so contagious and it’s just deadly,” exclaims Dr. Reza.
Roughly 95 percent of people in the hospital right now for COVID are unvaccinated.
Health experts say the only way to stop these variants from spreading is to get vaccinated and to wear a mask to stop the spread.
Now is not the time to let your guard down.
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And while COVID cases continue to rise, local health experts say more testing is needed.
The line once again wrapping around the building at the Central Health Plaza on 6th Street Friday as people waited to get tested for COVID-19.
Latasha Hobbs says, “We got here about one minute right before four, the line was wrapped around the building.” Many we spoke with waiting an hour or more with the summer sun beating down. Deloris Barnes exclaiming, “Two hours is too long to stand in line. If you’re sitting in your car that’s fine you’re in your own space than you can turn on your AC.” And Dr. Reza says testing is the first step in combatting this recent surge of cases. ”In the middle of a pandemic and another big spike in the number of infections this is first and foremost where we can pick where the hot spots are to let people know if they’re infectious.”
Hobbs drove from Baymeadows to get to this testing site. ”There are a lot of people that can’t travel this far.” Dr. Reza believes there should be better access to testing in our community.”
This is something that we should have access to everybody in our community to try and get a better handle on this marked increase in COVID infections.”Walgreens and CVS are also conducting testing by appointment only, but those appointments are filling up extremely fast.