CAPE CORAL, Fla. — Today Florida reported over 10,000 new positive cases and while that might sound frightening Robert Hawkes with Florida Gulf Coast University says that number is a small percentage compared to a population with several million people across the state.
“The actual percentages are relatively low. They’ve been talking about keeping the number of positive cases below the 10% threshold of the population. We’re above that now, but these are things that we certainly want to consider” said Robert Hawkes, Director of the Physicians Assistant Program, FGCU.
Currently, the younger population is contracting the virus at a faster rate.
“However, they may be less symptomatic, early on we had people that were sick they required a lot of hospitalizations, and the numbers were relatively low. What we're seeing now is we’re having a lot of people testing positive but they might not be as symptomatic” said Hawkes.
On the bright side, the death rate overall is decreasing.
“So that's a positive, so people are certainly surviving COVID, they are being released from the hospital, but that does not mean that is a minor or insignificant virus,” said Hawkes.
Hawkes tells me that because Florida has a large number of cases, everyone should not assume they will automatically contract the virus.
“We’re certainly experiencing a peak in the cases, but the severity and the data rate has actually decreased, but again we are having a number of people that are going into hospitals, so the hospitalization rate is starting to creep up,” said Hawkes.
Hawkes says despite the low death rate, we must remain vigilant with following all CDC guidelines.
“So those are all positive signs, but we don’t want to give up and say, okay I don’t need to wear a mask, I don’t need to maintain distance those things are going to be very important to continue,” said Hawkes.
