Cases
The 7-day average of new cases (628 per day) has fallen from the post Holiday peak, and is comparable to that of the summer surge. I am hopeful that this decline will continue.

Deaths
The number of deaths per day are going up, but as physicians have learned better ways to treat patients we are not yet having as many deaths as in the summer peak.
In December 2020, Orange County Florida had an average of 3.35 covid-19 deaths per day (104 total deaths). In January 2021, the average had risen to 6.7 deaths per day (208 total deaths). The summer peak (June 22nd 2020 to July 22nd, 2020)   had 6.97 average deaths per day (223 total deaths).

In the state of Florida overall, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has started to decline, indicating that we may be close to the peak of deaths.

Percent Positivity
With the exception of last Saturday, the percent positivity metric for Orange County Florida has been above 7.54% in 13 of the last 14 days, indicating that community spread is not under control.

How many people have been vaccinated

The Florida department of health reports that as of January 30th 2021,   63,182 Orange County residents   (4.5% of the population) have received their first dose (out of two) of a COVID-19 Vaccine, which will grant partial immunity.

20,040, or 1.4% of the population have completed their two dose vaccination regimen and should achieve maximum immunity within two weeks of the 2nd booster shot.     [Full protection is not achieved until two weeks after the second dose, but some protection begins to appear within 10 days of the first dose.]

The rate of vaccinations for the first dose is currently outpacing that of the 2nd dose.

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 that   103,337 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 7.4 percent ( 103,337/ 1393452 = 0.07415899) of the population has been infected. The actual percentage is likely to be much higher as many asymptomatic cases may never be detected.

How many people have been hospitalized or died

Of those confirmed infected, 2,204 or   2.1 percent ( 2,204 / 103,337   = .02132827 ) have been hospitalized, and 940 have died.   The death toll is currently 0.91 percent of all detected cases ( 940 / 103,337 = .00909645 ).

Florida average percentages for hospitalizations and deaths are 4.2% and 1.5% so Orange County has done better than the rest of the state of Florida for hospitalizations and mortality.

Median Age of the infected

Last month the median age of those infected was 42, while 36.7 was the median age over the last 14 days.   [The median age of Florida residents is 42.2 ] My best guess for this downward demographic shift is that older adults were interacting with others less in January than they were in December.

Orange County Schools
Orange county schools resumed on January 4th, with 107,000 of their 206,000 students in face to face education. On December 18th 2020, they had a total of 2,096 confirmed cases, which raised to 3,924 by January 31st,   a gain of 1,828 cases.     The number of cases in the K-12 schools has reflected community spread primarily outside of the schools, which did not appear to be a major driver of new infections.

Predictions for February:
Case numbers have dropped quickly in January. I hope they will continue to fall, but expect the sharp decline seen this month may gradually start to flatten out.   I expect deaths to peak in February and then continue to decline for the rest of the pandemic, due the availability of vaccines.

Current vaccination efforts focus on front-line health care workers and those over the age of 65, which should begin to reduce the number of covid-19 deaths as vaccination efforts ramp up.

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