Based on data released at this week’s press conference, the Florida Department of Health is reporting that Orange County’s 14-day rolling positivity rate is 30.27 percent and there have been 280,564 total positive cases for Orange County residents.
New local COVID-19 cases in past two weeks continue to be in age group 25-34, most recently it was 20% of all cases reported to the county. Even though the omicron variant has been verified in Orange County, the delta variant is the dominant virus locally.
“The omicron variant, the b11529 and its lineages have been verified in Orange County resident cases through genome sequencing,” said Alvina K. Chu, MHS, Epidemiology Program Manager for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County. “However, currently the delta variant continues to be the dominant variant circulating within our community.”
Variant results indicate that both the omicron and the delta variants are circulating within all three service areas in the Orlando area. Orange County also released data showing omicron being the dominant variant in wastewater testing. Learn more about why wastewater surveillance is an effective method in monitoring COVID-19 in Orlando.
The CDC level of community transmission is now labeled as high. The CDC definitions for when we move into high transmission levels is 100 or greater cases per 100,000 population and with a percent positivity of greater than 10%. This week, health officials reported Orange County’s seven day average incidence rate was 1823.1.
Officials also said there has been an increase in local hospitalizations, but did add that the volume of cases thanks to omicron is helping lead to that increase, not necessarily the severity of the variant. It was noted that 90% of those age 65 and older have received at least one dose locally.
