A little more than 16 percent of the children who have been tested in the tri-county area in the past two weeks have been identified with the potentially deadly COVID-19 virus.
That’s according to a report released Sunday by the Florida Department of Health that takes into account test results from Aug. 2 through Aug. 15. Those statistics show that 291 children under the age of 18 in the local area have tested positive for the potentially deadly virus, which represents about 2 percent of the overall number of cases – 14,406 – reported in the tri-county area.
As of Sunday, 159 minors in Marion County were being reported as positive for COVID-19, along with 99 from Lake County and 33 from Sumter County. A total of 1,506 juveniles have been tested in the past two weeks in the local area – 764 in Marion County, 640 in Lake County and 102 in Sumter County.
Across Florida, there have been 7,925 positive results among the 56,989 minors who have been tested since Aug. 2. That amounts to a positivity rate of 13.9 percent across the state, which is lower than the 16.2 percent rate in the tri-county area.
There have been no deaths among minors in Florida since Aug. 2. But 89 children have been hospitalized statewide with the virus.
The breakdown by age of those minors reported with COVID-19 across Florida is:
- Under 1 years old – 355 cases (4 percent);
- 1-4 years old – 1,133 cases (14 percent);
- 5-10 years old – 2,155 cases (27 percent);
- 11-13 years old – 1,461 cases (18 percent); and
- 14-17 years old – 2,821 cases (36 percent).
