New COVID-19 cases rising in Alachua County as area nears 'high' transmission level

Alachua County is on the cusp of moving back into a designation as an area of "high" community transmission for COVID-19, based on federal guidelines, as the number of new cases and rates of hospitalizations creep back up.

For the seven days ending May 19, the state Department of Health reports that there were 584 new reported COVID-19 cases in Alachua County, a rate of 214 per 100,000 population. The positivity rate for those getting tested for the disease rose to 11.6%.

That is among the top third of counties in Florida with numbers that are above state averages.

The last time the county had so many new cases and such a high positivity rate was in early February as the last surge of cases began to ebb. On Feb. 4, the state Department of Health reported Alachua County with 2,330 new cases and a positivity rate of 24%.

But in recent weeks case counts have been below 200 per week and positivity rates have been in the single digits.

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The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that where new cases are above 200 per 100,000 people, and hospital admissions are above 10 per 100,000 people, a county is seeing high transmission of the virus. CDC advises everyone in those areas, regardless of vaccination, to wear a high-quality mask when around other people indoors.

Alachua county exceeds a rate of 200 new cases, and at a rate of 9.7 new COVID-19 hospitalizations, is almost moving from moderate to high transmission.

Currently, a handful of counties in the state — mostly in South Florida — are seeing high community transmission.

On Monday, UF Health said it has a total of 31 admitted patients with COVID-19, with 11 of those patients non-infectious and three requiring intensive care. UF Health reports it only has one pediatric case.

The Gainesville Sun spoke to Dr. Kartik Cherabuddi, an infectious disease physician at UF Health, who said that children who have contracted the virus tend to recover within two to seven days.

"The adults we are we seeing or immunocompromised patients still continue to get more sever disease. But we've seen a lot of young and middle aged being infected," Cherabuddi said.

Cherabuddi said a tough thing with rise in cases is that people are testing themselves with the antigen test at home people aren't reporting their numbers.

"Based on just the number of people reaching to my colleagues and me for various COVID-19 treatments, there' a pretty large number of people getting infected with COVID-19 right now," Cherabuddi said.

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Last Monday, UF Health reported 30 cases, 14 of those patients were positive and there were 16 who were no longer infectious. It also reported that there were two pediatric cases the previous week.

Common symptoms physicians are seeing at UF Health are headaches, fatigue or fevers. Cherabuddi said there have been cases where people have mistaken COVID-19 with allergies after experiencing sinus symptoms and a sore throat.

Malcom Randall VA Medical Center reported it only has five positive COVID-19 patients in-house with two of them needing intensive care. It's a slight increase from last week where the hospital states it had four positive COVID-19 patients with none requiring intensive care.

Cherabuddi said the best way for people to stay safe during the COVID-19 increase is to wear a mask, get the booster shot and by increasing air ventilation, encouraging families to purchase a portable HEPA air filter.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Alachua County sees sharp uptick in COVID cases