Palm Beach County’s COVID-19 Update for January 8

Sourced from The Florida Department of Health.

As we move into a new year, the COVID-19 pandemic fails to improve despite vaccine rollout efforts and pleas for increased social distancing efforts.

In Florida, there are currently 1,492,722 total positive COVID-19 cases with 22,481 deaths according to The Florida Department of Health. Palm Beach County has 88,852 total positive COVID-19 cases with 1,933 deaths and 5,118 residents hospitalized, reports The Florida Department of Health.

Florida Atlantic University curates a COVID-19 dashboard on their website that holds statistics for each county in Florida. According to this dashboard, there is a 7-day positive case average of 833 cases with a 10.01% positivity rate.

One of the major concerns throughout this pandemic has been running out of space to hold those infected in hospitals around the nation. In Palm Beach County, there are 910 available hospital beds and 123 ICU beds.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed Executive Order 20-315 which outlines a vaccine rollout plan. Those slated to receive the vaccine first are “long-term care facility residents and staff, persons 65 years of age and older, health care personnel with direct patient contact, persons deemed to be extremely vulnerable to COVID-19 by hospital providers,” according to The Palm Beach County Department of Health.