It’s July 28th, 2020, how is Orange County Florida doing with COVID-19?

The number of new cases per day has surged up, but appears to have plateaued at an average of 606 new cases a day for the last month. Deaths appear to lag new cases by about 3 weeks and have reached a rate of 7-8 per day.

If the new deaths curve is actually lagging the new cases curve by 3 weeks, and also plateaus at the current levels, we will have a sustained period of 5-8 deaths per day for the next month, doubling the total number of deaths to date in the next month.

How many people have been infected

The US Census bureau estimated that Orange County Florida has a population of 1,393,452 people (July 1st, 2019).     The Florida Department of health reports today that 27,820 cases of COVID-19 (confirmed by either a positive PCR or Antigen test result) have occurred in Orange County so far.     That means at least 2 percent (27820/1393452   = 0.019964) of the population has been infected.

The actual number is likely to be higher, as many infections are asymptomatic, or not confirmed with a lab test.   Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC estimates that the number of people actually infected may be up to 10 times higher than confirmed with lab tests, putting an upper bound of 20% of the population of Orange County as already having been infected.

How many people have been hospitalized or died

Of those confirmed infected, 756 or 2.7 percent ( 756 / 27820 = 0.02717469 ) have been hospitalized, and 179 have died.   The death toll is currently 0.64 percent of all detected cases (179 / 27820= 0.00643421).

In the last month (June 27th to July 27th) the number of dead has tripled (from 56 to 179).

Median Age is Increasing

Florida average percentages for hospitalizations and deaths are 5.6% and 1.38% so Orange County has fared better than the rest of the state of Florida for hospitalizations and mortality so far.   This may be due to the fact that South Florida was hit hard first, giving Central Florida a stark warning and time to prepare.

Unfortunately, the median age of the infected is rising. The first big surge of cases detected in mid-June (after bars reopened) were primarily very young individuals, with a median age of 22 for new cases. The current median age is 42, a generation older. As more older individuals are infected the percentages for hospitalizations and deaths may increase in Orange County to match the averages seen in the rest of Florida.

[Charts/Numbers used can be found in this open document spreadsheet: orange_county_florida.ods ]