Central Florida Reports Increase in COVID-19 Hospitalizations

CDC says that higher hospitalization rates will continue for the next four weeks. 

Coronavirus hospitalizations are on the rise in several states, and those figures also include Central Florida. While new COVID-19 cases and deaths decrease in Florida, hospitalizations in Central Florida have increased, the Florida Department of Health reports. 

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As of Tuesday, Florida only had 200 new patients hospitalized due to COVID-19; however, approximately 60 of them were in the Central Florida area. Furthermore, on Oct. 6, Florida had at least 55 new coronavirus deaths and 2,251 new cases. Florida has been averaging 2,222 new cases per day, according to The New York Times. Overall, as of this afternoon, Florida has had 722,699 cases and 14,903 deaths.

One of the reasons the Florida figures are problematic is that more schools continue to reopen. In Miami-Dade County, an estimated 40,000 students will be returning to school this week. The current data from the Florida Department of Health show that more than 21,000 COVID-19 cases are teens between the ages of 14 and 17, accounting for 36% of hospitalizations and 44% of the deaths in pediatric cases since the pandemic began. This age group is among the 59,612 children that have been infected in Florida. The largest increase in hospitalizations came from Polk County, though some cite nursing homes in the area as the reason for the uptick. 

The increase in hospitalizations is a trend the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says will continue to go up in the next four weeks. For Nov. 2, the forecasts estimate 2,300 to 5,700 new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day.

The rise in several states has some people worried, primarily because school is back in session in various counties throughout Florida. The reopening of schools is still a very contested topic in Florida. In August, Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke about the importance of reopening schools as if children were soldiers. 

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“Just as the SEALs surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, so, too, would the Martin County school system find a way to provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or continued distance learning — all in, all the time,” DeSantis said. 

However, some school instructors see the need to go back amid a pandemic too dangerous. In Pinellas County, hundreds of teachers decided to retire, while others chose to resign or take a leave of absence in order to avoid going back to work. 

The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers’ union in the country, filed a lawsuit in August saying that returning to work in Florida violates a requirement in Florida law that schools be “safe.”

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