Polk County COVID-19 cases jumped 48.9% in latest report. Positivity remains low

Gary White, The Ledger
·2 min read
As of Dec. 3, 2022, the CDC still lists most of Florida "low" for community spread of COVID-19.
As of Dec. 3, 2022, the CDC still lists most of Florida "low" for community spread of COVID-19.

COVID-19 infections in Polk County have surged after months of decline.

The Florida Department of Health registered 661 new cases for the period of Nov. 25 to Dec. 1 in a biweekly update released late Friday afternoon. That signaled an increase of 48.9% from the previous report.

The positivity rate on testing for Polk residents jumped to 9.5%, up from 6.6% two weeks earlier. The rate had been mostly dropping since a peak during the summer, when it was above 20% from June into August.

The positivity rate is based on test results reported to the Department of Health and doesn’t include presumed infections found through home testing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to list Polk County as low for community levels of COVID-19. As of Friday afternoon, all but 13 of the state’s 67 counties had the same status. Two clusters of counties in north Florida and southwest Florida were rated with medium levels of COVID.

The federal agency’s COVID Tracker website reported 13 COVID-related deaths for Polk County in the seven-day period ending Wednesday, an increase of 160% from the previous week.

Deaths are a lagging indicator, and there can be long delays in having deaths officially recorded.

Statewide, the Department of Health registered 18,761 new infections, a spike of 61.3% from the previous report. Florida’s positivity rate jumped from 8% in the previous report to 11.4%.

The agency tallied 326 new deaths in Friday’s update, raising the cumulative figure to 83,201. The department does not report deaths by county of residence.

Hospitals in Polk County admitted an estimated 36 patients with confirmed infections in the week ending Wednesday, according to the CDC, a decline of 6.5% from the previous seven-day period.

Patients with COVID occupied 2% of staffed beds and 2.2% of beds in intensive-care units, the CDC reported.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk sees COVID cases jump, but community spread remains 'low'