Orange County leaders monitoring potential rise in COVID-19 cases

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County leaders said the 16 new COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday could keep the county in a prolonged period of the Phase 1 reopening plan.

So far, the county’s top health official said he’s not concerned about new numbers, but the next few days are critical.

On Wednesday, Orange County had 16 more cases than Tuesday, but on Tuesday the number was only up by seven.

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Dr. Raul Pino said he’ll become concerned only after seeing three or more days of rising numbers.

Pino said the county had one additional death to report: a patient in their 80′s with pre-existing conditions.

He also said testing is as important as ever and there are hundreds of appointments available at non-mobile and mobile test sites.

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“We continue with a round of testing and we will continue next week,” said Pino. “We have not announced the sites because we are expecting confirmation on two of the schools, but as soon as we plan that we will do a press release on that information.”

Those test results are key to which direction Orange County moves. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings believes phase one will last at least another week if cases do not continue to climb.

“We’re in the second week of phase one so it’s likely that the governor would make an announcement sometime soon on when we will go to phase two,” said Demings.

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With the new test numbers, Dr. Pino said Orange County’s rate of positive results moved up slightly from 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent.

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