Florida COVID-19 Reality Check - August 3rd, 2021
Bottom Line: Peak cases, peak hospitalizations, the news is anything but ideal in Florida right now. And it’s not just that Florida’s reached new highs in cases and hospitalizations, it’s how quickly it’s happened. Entering July, Florida averaged around 1,600 new cases per day. Entering August that number has increased nearly tenfold to over 15,800. Last week I cited the Mayo Clinic’s tracker and projection tool for the spread of COVID-19 cases in Florida because it had been accurate in picking up on the summer surge in cases in Florida in early July. Based on their data, I mentioned were set to reach peak pandemic conditions in Florida over the next couple of weeks. Here we are, it’d didn’t take long. The question now becomes what happens from here? On Sunday Dr. Anthony Fauci said it will get worse. Will that be true? More specifically, what about Florida?
Using the Mayo Clinic’s 14-day projections, the news isn’t awesome. They provide three different models. What they call the “lower bound” projection, or best-case scenario, the middle, or average projection and an upper bound, or worst-case scenario. I’ll work backwards from the worst-case to the best. Under the worst-case projections from the Mayo Clinic, Florida’s cases will rise by 235% from where we are today over the next two weeks. If that happened, we’d be talking about 37,000 or so daily cases. The average projection has Florida seeing a 53% increase in new cases over the next two weeks, or an increase to around 24,000 daily cases. The best-case scenario has the current surge peaking tomorrow (Wednesday the 4th) and holding around that level over the next two weeks. That’d leave us with 4% more cases daily or around 16,500 per day.
The takeaway is this. We’re at the peak of the pandemic right now and unfortunately over the next two weeks even the most optimistic outlook keeps us at about these levels over the next couple of weeks. Without having clarity regarding the efficacy of vaccines against the Delta variant it makes sense for all of us to be mindful and to be careful as we’re out and about. Odds are it’s getting worse before it gets better and none of us want to get sick. Hopefully the best-case plays out and we’ll begin leveling off this week.