Florida News that impacts you – August 18th
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the some of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida.
- Today is Florida’s Primary Election Day with polls open until 7pm. The election has featured record votes by mail with nearly eight in ten votes cast in advance of Election Day taking place by mail as opposed to early voting.
- Monday’s new COVID case count reported at under 2,700, was the lowest since June 17th. Additionally, the moving average of daily cases is now the lowest since June 27th. The positivity rate has also been on the decline – checking in at 8.2% on Monday. The daily positivity rate has been below the CDC target of 10% daily since August 1st. Related...
- Palm Beach County Mayor Daver Kerner said Palm Beach County is “getting to a place where it is ready to move to Phase 2" (reopening). Palm Beach County’s daily trends are the best since June 8th.
- AstraZeneca is starting a COVID vaccine trial at the JFK medical campus today in which hundreds of study participants will be tested with a vaccine candidate or a placebo.
- The figures are in for Florida’s tourism industry in the second quarter during the peak of the pandemic lockdowns. A record drop of 60.5% was reported by Visit Florida. This included a 90% decline in international tourism. Through the first six months of the year 24 million fewer tourists visited Florida. Pacing to start the third quarter is improved but declines of 30%-40% over last year are still anticipated.