According to the 6 p.m. DOH Dashboard, Florida now has 16826 COVID-19 cases (up 1,128 over the past 24 hours) and 371 deaths (up 48). Â Escambia only has 10 more cases, total 192, but Santa Rosa County increased by 26 cases to a total of 96 cases – the largest single-day jump in cases for Santa Rosa.
Escambia County now has 20 cases tied to long-term care facilities. The Pensacola nursing that is highly infected has not responded to requests from Inweekly for a statement. The county reportedly has encouraged them –we don’t know if the county actually talked with the facility’s management or simply released a statement to cover their butts- to work with the state surgeon general on releasing information. Â Crickets so far.
| 4/8/20 | 4/9/20 | |||
| 6 p.m. | 6 p.m. | Increase | ||
| Total Cases | 15698 | 16826 | 1128 | 7.19% |
| Florida Residents | 15234 | 16323 | 1089 | 7.15% |
| Non-Fla. | 464 | 503 | 39 | 8.41% |
| Deaths | 323 | 371 | 48 | 14.86% |
| Escambia | 182 | 192 | 10 | 5.49% |
| Okaloosa | 78 | 83 | 5 | 6.41% |
| Santa Rosa | 70 | 96 | 26 | 37.14% |
| Broward | 2365 | 2480 | 115 | 4.86% |
Escambia County did not release the more detailed SITREP report that gives details about the assisted living facilities, claiming the report is exempt from public records.
Pamela Marsh, president of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, called the exemption by the county “smoke and mirrors.”
“This type of information in this type of crisis could not be more critical to keep the public informed about realities affecting life and death decisions,” Marsh told the PNJ. “We need more transparency – more accurate information.”
She told the daily that exemption claim begs the question: “What have they got to hide?” Read more.
Inweekly has learned the Walnut Hill patient’s test results have come back negative, and the county has release all eight first responders from self-quarantine. Of course, this was not included in the county’s nightly update because county officials never listed it in its other updates — as part of its hide-and-seek communication plan.
The Charts
The Underhill Chart tracks total positive cases by day:
Overhill Chart tracks new cases each day:
Testing: Â The specimen collections have dropped dramatically this week:
