The Community Health mobile unit tested 177 people yesterday at Morris Court – with no pre-screening required. Â Since Tuesday, the mobile unit collected nearly 600 specimens. Â The Ascension Sacred Heart’s mobile unit collected an estimated 1200 specimens from local nursing homes – all in Escambia County. Â Yet, DOH Escambia only entered 207 test results yesterday into the system for Escambia County.
EOC manager Eric Gilmore told us on Thursday that the turnaround on testing is 24-48 hours. The results appear to be taking much longer. Â If DOH doesn’t enter a boat load of test results today, we will be asking Gilmore for an explanation.
Yesterday, Florida passed 30K cases and had 59 deaths in a 24-hour period – death total 1046. Â Escambia County showed only 14 new cases – with about 1500 tests results pending. Â We don’t know the exact number of pending because DOH Escambia only tracks results.
Three of the new cases involved long-term care facilities staff and residents –but we may have as many as 1,000 tests from LTCs that are outstanding.
The 207 test results for Escambia entered into the system by DOH Escambia had only 6.8% positives. Â Seventy-four test results were entered for Santa Rosa County – 2.7% positives.
One other point: Dr. Lanza said on Thursday that 38% of the Escambia County residents that have tested positive are workers at the long-term care facilities. These are people walking around our community spreading the virus.
Shouldn’t we fast-track the results from the LTCs so we know how many of their employees are infected before the state, county and city decide what to open? Until we do, we won’t have an accurate picture of the spread of the virus in Escambia County.
If results are taking longer than 48 hours again, then we can’t gain a handle on any outbreaks after we open up.
The logical steps are to complete the testing of all LTC staff and residents and to deploy more mobile testing units that don’t require pre-screening. All three hospitals need to commit to drive-thru and standalone testing sites without prescreening to expand the testing.
Yet, we have only one county official pushing for more testing – Commissioner Lumon May.
| 4/23/20 | 4/24/20 | |||
| 6 p.m. | 6 p.m. | Increase | ||
| Total Cases | 29648 | 30533 | 885 | 2.99% |
| Florida Residents | 28843 | 29707 | 864 | 3.00% |
| Non-Fla. | 805 | 826 | 21 | 2.61% |
| Deaths | 987 | 1046 | 59 | 5.98% |
| Escambia | 420 | 434 | 14 | 3.33% |
| Okaloosa | 141 | 145 | 4 | 2.84% |
| Santa Rosa | 141 | 143 | 2 | 1.42% |
| Broward | 4431 | 4591 | 160 | 3.61% |
| Esc LTC cases | 142 | 145 | 3 | 2.07% |
Headline from today’s PNJ Daily Briefing: “One-third of Escambia County’s COVID-19 cases in long-term care…” Looks vaguely familiar. Ha, ha
BY THE NUMBERS: CORONAVIRUS — FRIDAY EVENING EDITION
April 24, 2020
By NSF Staff
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Department of Health released updated numbers Friday evening about the coronavirus in the state. Here are some takeaways:
— 30,533: Total number of cases.
— 359: Increase in cases from a Friday morning count.
— 1,046: Deaths of Florida residents.
— 34: Increase in deaths from a Friday morning count, with deaths of people who tested positive in Broward, Charlotte, Clay, Collier, Miami-Dade, Lake, Manatee, Marion, Orange, Palm Beach, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Seminole and St. Lucie counties.
— 4,817: Florida residents hospitalized.
— 2,682: Cases involving residents or staff members of long-term care facilities.
— 106: Increase in long-term care cases from a Friday morning count.
— 296: Deaths of residents or staff members of long-term care facilities.
— 15: Increase in long-term care deaths from a Friday morning count.
— 28.3: Percentage of deaths involving long-term care facilities.
— 18,117: Cases in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
— 59.3: Percentage of cases in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Source: Florida Department of Health
Blackwater Update
From The News Service of Florida: Â The number of inmates who have tested positive for COVID-19 at two Florida prisons has skyrocketed in the last week, according to a report released by the Florida Department of Corrections on Friday. The combined number of inmates with COVID-19 at Tomoka Correctional Institution and Sumter Correctional Institution climbed to 126 on Friday, a jump from a total of just 10 inmates who tested positive at the facilities a week ago.
Corrections officials said Friday that 82 inmates tested positive for COVID-19 at Tomoka, a Daytona Beach facilities with a maximum capacity of 1,263 prisoners. Tomoka, which had seven infected inmates a week ago, is the state’s hardest-hit correctional facility amid the pandemic. In addition to the inmates who have tested positive for COVID-19, 1,090 inmates at the prison are either in medical isolation or quarantine after being exposed to the highly contagious virus, officials said Friday.
Sumter Correctional Institution also saw a significant uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases over the past week. The Bushnell prison, which has a capacity of 1,639 inmates, has 44 prisoners who have tested positive for the virus, an increase from three prisoners who were confirmed positive on April 17. The number of cases at Tomoka and Sumter account for 70 percent of the state’s 179 prisoners who have tested positive for the virus.
Forty-three inmates and 10 workers at Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Santa Rosa County also tested positive for COVID-19 as of Friday, the latest report showed. Four inmates at the Milton prison died from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus. As of Friday, 121 corrections workers have tested positive for the virus, but the state has not yet released the number of workers who have undergone testing.
As COVID-19 continues to spread within Florida’s prison system, 427 of the state’s roughly 94,000 inmates have been tested for the virus, according to corrections officials. The number of tests that have been performed increased by 97 in the last week.