On Monday, Florida recorded the second-most cases of the coronavirus reported in a single day with 12,624 cases. To put that into perspective, that's more than most countries reported that day.
Using data from the Florida Department of Health, the two-week average Tuesday shows that nearly ten thousand new cases are reported daily.
Right now, parents are turning their focus to school districts as they decide how their children will approach the upcoming school year. With that in mind, First Coast News is analyzing the percent of positive tests returned in some of our biggest counties.
Tuesday morning, Duval County is just tenths of a percent away from being at a 10% positive testing rate.
Since the pandemic began, 9.45% of tests in Jacksonville have come back positive for COVID-19. In the last week, 18.27% of tests have come back positive. Over the past seven days, nearly two of every 10 test-takers have had coronavirus. On Monday, Duval also reported three more deaths and two more hospitalizations.
St. Johns County is also trending up. Overall, 6.9% of tests have come back positive since we first began testing for the coronavirus. Tracking the daily changes, data shows that the two-week average for tests coming back positive is just below 15%.
The Curve in Context
The rising trends continue into Clay County where the total percent positive about 6.8%. In the past week, Clay saw three days where the percent positive was more than 20%.
Looking back at the numbers on June 5 (when phase two of reopening began), we can see that all of our biggest counties were showing less than 4% of tests coming back positive for COVID-19. Right now, Duval could be passing 10% in the coming days and Clay and St. Johns are both almost at 7%.
It’s hard to know the impact the upcoming school year will have on the spread of the coronavirus. First Coast News will be checking the data every day to keep families informed to make the right decisions for their children.