The positivity rate for Covid dropped to 9.62% last week. January’s rate was 14%. However, the deaths have increased by 35 since Jan. 31 – more than October and March-May.
| Date | Negatives | Positives | Total | Positivity |
| 1-Feb | 1129 | 152 | 1281 | 11.87% |
| 2-Feb | 1386 | 191 | 1577 | 12.11% |
| 3-Feb | 1052 | 154 | 1206 | 12.77% |
| 4-Feb | 2551 | 193 | 2744 | 7.03% |
| 5-Feb | 1249 | 113 | 1362 | 8.30% |
| 6-Feb | 982 | 86 | 1068 | 8.05% |
| 8349 | 889 | 9238 | 9.62% |
Using the statewide data for the same six days (February 1-6), the statewide positive rate was 9.3%, a bit less than Escambia County’s 9.62% rate cited above. Why is it higher here?
At a minimum, our goal here in Escambia County should be to have numbers “better” than the statewide averages. Through the end of February 6, a total of 374,639 aged 65 and older have received their second shot in Florida. Using a state population estimate for 2020 broken out by age brackets, that comes out to 8.4%. That doesn’t seem very high. How are we doing in Escambia County? At what percentage statewide or county threshold does the state intend to begin to allow people in the 55-64 age bracket to get shots? Does it have to be a statewide decision? Could it be county-by-county? I hope they have planned it out in advance and at least have a tentative percentage goal in mind. The Escambia County COVID-19 death numbers fluctuate all over the place just like the positive test results and hospitalization numbers. If you look at enough of reports over enough time, you see that public political statements always about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel are premature based on reading too much into daily or weekly numbers. It seems more like an exercise in wishful thinking like a dog chasing its tail. What might make this “pandemic” more real for the many people who still defiantly go shopping without masks endangering the rest of us is if the infection, hospitalization and death data were also broken out and reported to the media and then to us by municipality and zip code and also “per capita.” Perhaps the Florida Department of Health could create a tool to let people look at the data the way they want to see it. What a novel concept. As example, if I lived in Minnesota right now and I was thinking about flying south for a vacation in Florida, I think it might be helpful to know which counties and municipalities had lower “per capita” infection rates. What are the rates at Perdido Key versus Pensacola Beach versus Navarre Beach? If the business community ever woke up and realized that there is an advantage to having lower infection, hospitalization and death rates, and they seem mostly to be standing on the sidelines, then perhaps they might pressure local leaders to do something useful. Lastly, one odd number that stands out now is that the hospitalization rate in Escambia County (6%) is higher than the statewide hospitalization rate (4%) and the cases in long-term care facility are a greater percentage in Escambia County (7%) than statewide (4%). Why is that?