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Florida COVID-19 Reality Check – October 12th, 2021
Bottom Line: It’s fall and thankfully Florida left the summer surge of COVID-19 cases in summer. We’ve continued to experience a rapid decline of new COVID-19 cases, 84% below peak levels and subsequent hospitalizations. The peak of the summer surge in cases occurred August 17thand Florida’s trendline has steadily improved ever since. Vaccination rates have continued to rise, with over 70% of Florida’s eligible population having been vaccinated and without catalysts of concern on the horizon the news is set to continue to improve significantly over the next two weeks.
The Mayo Clinic’s tracker and projection tool has been highly accurate throughout the pandemic. Looking at the 14-day projections, the news looking out over the next couple of weeks remains the best it’s been since the Delta variants hit the scene. 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. With new cases currently at three-month lows, here’s what’s anticipated over the next couple of weeks.
Under the worst-case projection from the Mayo Clinic, Florida’s cases would hold steady with where we are today, leaving the state pacing around 3,450 daily new cases. The average projection has Florida seeing a 29% decrease in cases to around 2,400 daily cases. The best-case scenario continues to provide much better news. Under that scenario cases are expected to decline by 53% over the next two weeks leaving us with around 1,800 daily cases.
Should Florida experience the best-case projection, we would be back to the levels of spread we’d experienced prior to the summer surge of cases on back of the rise of the Delta variants. Fingers crossed that it continues to be good news from here.