MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Cases of COVID-19 are continuing to surge in Miami-Dade County.
The office of Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said test volumes at all county sites, such as the one in Tropical Park, are up by 112 percent since the July Fourth holiday nearly one month ago.
“We’re starting to see numbers that are higher than last year,” said Key Biscayne Mayor Michael Davey, who added that like Miami-Dade County, the village is choosing to follow the CDC’s advice, re-instating the use of masks while inside government buildings.
“It’s a health issue,” he said. “We are seeing this spike and we have to do what we can slow the spread and flatten the curve. We are worse than we were last summer and that’s both in terms of cases and hospitalizations.”
One bright spot is that more people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Miami-Dade than any other county in the state, but a lag with younger demographics is troubling, according to infectious disease expert Dr. Aileen Marty, because this time around it’s the younger people fulling up hospital beds.
“It is that age group we are seeing in increasing numbers in our hospitals, those unvaccinated people from 12-to-29-to-39,” said Dr. Marty.
On Monday, Marc Lotter with the Florida Hospital Association said while there are more COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide that at any other point in the pandemic, unlike last summer, it is not the Miami-area that is the epicenter, but rather the Jacksonville and Orlando areas that are seeing, in his words, the worst of it.
That said, Miami-area hospitals are, “about two thirds of their peak from the previous pandemic peak, which was last summer,” Lotter said.
#COVID19 #FLORIDA: @marc_lotter says last weekend Florida eclipsed previous record for #COVID hospitalizations statewide “and that number is continuing to increase.” Unlike last summer, Miami-area he says not the epicenter - instead “the worst of it” is in Jacksonville/Orlando.▶️ pic.twitter.com/zsya1z5JSl
— Christina Boomer Vazquez (@CBoomerVazquez) August 2, 2021
They are also monitoring an uptick in pediatric hospital admissions at children’s hospitals across the state.
RELATED LINK: South Florida children’s hospitals report uptick in COVID-19 cases
NEW: @Nicklaus4Kids Nicklaus Children's Hospital CMO Dr. Marcos Mestre tells me they are seeing an increase in cases. “Right now in the hospital we have 17 patients that are COVID-positive, 6 of them are in our ICU, 1 of them on a ventilator.” #Kids #COVID19 #SoundOn ▶️ (Thread) pic.twitter.com/u8fc40oW7O
— Christina Boomer Vazquez (@CBoomerVazquez) July 30, 2021
Lotter said statewide, the ages of admitted Covid patients is skewing younger, with the average age for hospitalized Covid patients being in the early 40′s right now.
He said the takeaway continues to be to get vaccinated, and that includes for healthcare workers he said Floridians need at the bedside, not in a bed.
One way to bring the number of unvaccinated people in hospitals with Covid down is for more community members to get vaccinated.
For information on where COVID-19 vaccines are available in South Florida, click here.