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Florida COVID-19 Reality Check – October 27th, 2021
Bottom Line: Monday marked a meaningful milestone measuring Florida’s progress in the pandemic. With 950 new COVID-19 cases having been reported, it was the first day below 1,000 new cases for our state since June 3rd of last year. And when you think back to late August when Florida was still averaging over 20,000 new cases daily – it's remarkable to think that we have about a 20th of the cases today that we had then. The peak of the summer surge in cases occurred August 17th and Florida’s trendline has steadily improved ever since. We’ve now experienced a 91% decline in average cases from peak levels. In fact, as of Tuesday, Florida had the lowest population adjusted rate of COVID-19 cases nationally. The better news looks likely to continue.
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 increase slightly with where we are today, leaving the state pacing around 2,200 new cases daily in two weeks. The average projection has Florida seeing a 30% decrease in cases to around 1,400 daily cases. The best-case scenario continues to provide much better news. Under that scenario we’d see a decline in cases to around the earliest weeks of the pandemic with a decline of 60% over the next two weeks leaving us with around 800 daily cases.
There’s a lot that’s encouraging about where we currently are at this phase of the pandemic. While many experts expect a winter surge in cases, so perhaps we’re not out of the woods with the pandemic yet, indications are that we should continue to see meaningful progress for now.