Recent rise in COVID-19 cases in Orange County may be anomaly, health officials say

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Health officials say a recent rise in COVID-19 cases in the county could be an anomaly.

Orange County was up by 25 cases on Tuesday, then 16 on Wednesday, 24 on Thursday, 42 on Friday, 17 on Saturday and 26 on Sunday.

On Monday, the county went up 24 cases.

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"As it is, the curve would show that we are increasing and going for a second peak," county health officer Dr. Raul Pino said.

However, that may not be accurate, he said.

Because of issues with a private lab, the county health department received a dump of 6,000 test results Saturday. Of those, 33 were positive.

“We have never tested 6,000 people in a day. We have never tested 6,000 people in two days,” Pino said. “We probably test 6,000 people in a week in the county.”

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Pino said the results could be old, so his team is investigating, and what they’re seeing in hospitals does not reflect a second wave.

“One of the things that we’re measuring that we consider a very sensitive metric for us is the number of patients that we admit with COVID-positive results and that number has remained flat,” said Dr. George Ralls, vice president of quality and clinical transformation for Orlando Health. It has not increased over the last week.”

There’s good news in all this: With more than 50,000 people tested here, the positive rate and hospitalizations are still declining.

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