COVID-19 kills five more Manatee County residents. Death toll nears 1,000 in Florida
Five more COVID-19 deaths have been reported in Manatee County, raising the death toll to 39.
Statewide, there were 60 new deaths reported by the Florida Department of Health on Thursday, including in Manatee, Broward, Charlotte, Dade, Lake, Lee, Martin, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Polk, Sarasota and St. Lucie counties. The death toll was 987.
Only Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties have had more COVID-19 deaths than Manatee among Florida’s 67 counties. The next highest death tolls are in Sarasota and Lee counties with 32 deaths each and Orange County with 29 deaths.
As of Thursday morning, there were 146 total cases of residents and staff at nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Manatee County who had tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the state health department. Sixteen of those cases were fatal. Manatee had the highest number of cases and deaths tied to long-term care facilities outside of South Florida.
There is a delay in the accounting of COVID-19 cases linked to long-term care facilities, including deaths.
According to DOH data released Thursday morning, there were only 16 deaths in long-term care facilities in Manatee County. But Braden River Rehabilitation Center in Bradenton and Riviera Palms Rehabilitation Center in Palmetto confirmed they have had a total 23 deaths among their 141 total cases.
There were 25 more COVID-19 cases reported Thursday in Manatee County for a total of 473 confirmed cases to date.
The percentage of Manatee residents who test positive remains high. The positivity rate rose to 16.7 on Thursday, compared to 9.8 percent testing positive statewide. The only counties with higher percentages of positive cases are Suwannee, Madison, Gasden and Jefferson counties.
The higher positive rate could indicate a need for more testing. The data released by the state health department on Thursday evening showed 70 more test results in Manatee than the day before.
Manatee County has tested a much smaller percentage of the population than the state, testing only 0.68 percent of the county’s residents as of Thursday morning. The county’s goal is to test at least one percent of the population as the state has done, Director of Public Safety Jacob Saur told the board of county commissioners during a meeting Tuesday.
In Sarasota County, there were 310 confirmed cases of people testing positive for the coronavirus, or 8.2 percent of those tested, including 32 people who have died. There were 48 cases connected to long-term care facilities in Sarasota County, including 14 deaths.
In Hillsborough County, there are now 1,008 confirmed cases of people testing positive for the coronavirus, or 6.1 percent of those who were tested. In Pinellas County, there are now 656 cases, with 5.7 percent of people testing positive for the coronavirus.
There have been 21 COVID-19-related deaths in Hillsborough County and 23 in Pinellas.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 11:55 AM.
