COVID cases continue to drop in Gulf County
COVID-19 cases in Gulf County dropped significantly over the past week, with only 17 positive tests recorded between Sept. 24 and 30, according to the Florida Department of Health.
This marks the second consecutive week that health officials have marked a drop in cases.
There were also fewer coronavirus tests administered in the past week, and of those administered, a far smaller proportion generated positive results.
The Department of Health recorded a 7.33 percent positivity rate, the the lowest it has been since before the July and August spike in cases, widely attributed to the more contagious Delta variant of the disease.
Cases are still up from their rate in June, when some weeks there were no new cases reported in the county.
The vaccination rate remained steady at 52 percent from last week, showing a slight decline in the pace of vaccination. There has been a slow but steady climb in the number of Gulf County residents who have been vaccinated against COVID since the FDA approved three inoculations earlier this year.
Meet the Editor
Wendy Weitzel, The Star’s digital editor, joined the news outlet in August 2021, as a reporter covering primarily Gulf County.
Prior to then, she interned for Oklahoma-based news wire service Gaylord News and for Oklahoma City-based online newspaper NonDoc.com during her four years at the University of Oklahoma, from which she graduated in May with degrees in online journalism and political science.
While at OU, Weitzel was selected as Carnegie-Knight News21 Investigative Fellow among 30 top journalism students from around the country. She also was senior editor managing a 12-person newsroom in coordination with Oklahoma Watch, a non-profit news organization in eastern Oklahoma.