Until this week, Brevard County was in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s top worst level of COVID-19 spread — known as a “high transmission community” — with more than 100 cases per 100,000 population and a 10% or higher case positivity rate.
Now for the first time in months, the Space Coast dropped one level to a community of “substantial transmission,” marked by between 50-100 cases per 100,000 people and a case positivity rate between 8% and 10%.
The improvement was announced by John Davis, the Health Nursing Director at Florida Department of Health in Brevard, during Brevard County’s weekly emergency management meeting Friday.
However, Davis cautioned against too much optimism because he said not enough people are getting vaccinated. “I do want to emphasize the word substantial. So, we still have a lot of virus out in the community” said Davis.
Though COVID-19 numbers had not been released by the state before the weekly briefing, Davis said Brevard can look forward to seeing a decrease in case rates.
Hospitalizations have dropped “by 20% since the week prior” said Davis and ‘”schools are looking better,” but residents need to keep practicing mitigation measures such as getting vaccinated, washing their hands thoroughly, practicing social distancing and wearing face coverings.
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According to the CDC, there are four levels of transmission communities: high and substantial, followed by moderate transmission communities with between 10 and 50 cases per 100,000 and a case positivity rate between 5% and 8%, and lastly low transmission communities with fewer than 10 cases per 100,000 and a case positivity rate of less than 5%.
But the levels only tell part of the story. John Scott, Brevard County Emergency Management Director, emphasized that COVID-19 is a community problem that has touched all Brevard residents.
“We’ve lost sight of what those human impacts are in our community,” he said, pointing out that some people have lost loved ones and that there have also been economic impacts that have left some people without work. “We’ve had folks who haven’t’ been able to work because either illness or (because) they’re taking care of sick kids, or all the actual human toll impacts that COVID has,” said Scott.
Despite all of this, the officials pointed out that vaccination rates continue to stagnate. Brevard County only had 100 more vaccinations last week than the previous week.
Booster shots
Vaccine booster shots are also available for the immunocompromised and those ages 65 and older. According to a notice by the Florida Department of Health in Brevard, the the Pfizer booster shot is for people who are:
- ages 18-64 years with increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institutional setting and had the Pfizer-BioNTech primary series at least six months ago;
- 65 years or older or live in a long-term care facility;
- ages 18-64 years with an underlying medical condition;
- moderately to severely immunocompromised (for example, solid organ transplant recipient, immunosuppressant medications, active treatment for cancer, etc.) and at least 28 days have passed from the completion of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 primary series.
Where to get vaccinated
Florida Department of Health is offering a Moderna booster shot at there Viera clinic and a Pfizer booster shot at all three of there sites in addition to first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccines at three sites:
The Department of Health is offering vaccination outreach events at community sites. The next event will be Saturday, Oct. 9, at Mt. Moriah Missionary Church, 2295 Dr Harvey Riley St, Palm Bay, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will be available.
COVID-19 vaccines also are available at pharmacies at various local CVS, Publix, Sam’s Club, Walgreens, Walmart and Winn-Dixie stores, as well as urgent-care centers and physician offices.
The website www.211Brevard.org has a list of medical facilities and businesses offering vaccines. Some of those sites require reservations, while others allow walk-ins.
Emergency meetings status
Don Walker, Brevard County Communications Director, stated that the emergency meetings will no longer be weekly.
“We’ve timed our Facebook live updates, kind of based on the numbers that were provided on a weekly basis from the Department of Health. As those numbers increase, we ramp up the number of updates we provide going form once a month to once a week…based on the current numbers that we have and based on the numbers we anticipate will be released today by FDOH we are going to for now cease the weekly updates.”
Residents can look forward to the next meeting sometime in November— updates about the next meeting will be posted on the emergency management’s social media said Walker.
Amira Sweilem is the Data Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Sweilem at 386-406-5648 or asweilem@floridatoday.com.
