78% of most recent Orange County COVID-19 deaths involved unvaccinated people

ORANGE COUNTY, FLA. — Orange County reported more COVID-19 deaths in August than in any other single month of the pandemic so far.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said 293 COVID-19-related deaths were reported last month. Orange County’s previous high death increase was 228 in January. The second highest was in July with 227.

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Demings said 191 new deaths were reported on Thursday since the county’s previous news briefing last week.

Of those deaths, 41 were fully vaccinated, nine had had one dose and two were overdue for their second dose. That means 78.5% of the 191 deaths were of unvaccinated people.

“We knew that this could happen and that it would happen,” Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino said. “We didn’t know how high. But 191 is a sobering number.”

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County officials said of those deaths, 16 were at long-term care facilities. They said the average of those received their second dose of the vaccine five months before their deaths.

Pino said 91 of the latest reported deaths had preexisting conditions and 100 did not.

Since April, around 47,000 Floridians have died from COVID-19 -- that’s the capacity of UCF’s football stadium. And the numbers continue to get worse.

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Over the last week, Florida has been averaging about 335 deaths a day. That’s like losing two commercial airplanes full of people every day of the week.

The state releases its COVID-19 reports on Fridays, so we’ll see how this week looks then.

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