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Health officials made an announcement about COVID-19 recovery.
Nearly 50 days after the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in Putnam County, health officials have for the first time released data about the number of people who have recovered.
Thursday’s data showed no new cases locally, but Mary Garcia, the administrator for the Florida Department of Health in Putnam County, said in an email 90 out of the 120 people diagnosed with COVID-19 have recovered.
The 75% recovery rate is based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines of recovery and requires fevers to have resolved without the use of fever medicine and respiratory symptom improvement, according to cdc.gov.
“The provisionally estimated number of persons recovered from COVID-19 is calculated using an ‘average’ recovery time of 14 days for all cases excluding deaths,” Garcia said in the email.
By Thursday, there were 1,958 people in Putnam County tested, with 1,835 negative tests and three tests pending, according to floridadisaster.org.
The website said the biggest numbers came from Palatka, which has 78 cases. Interlachen came in second with 16, East Palatka had 12, Crescent City had five, Satsuma had four, Welaka had two, and Hawthorne, Melrose and Hollister each had one.
Monday marked the first day restaurants and retail stores could reopen at 25% capacity. Gov. Ron DeSantis also permitted elective surgeries to restart.
Mark Dooley, CEO of Putnam Community Medical Center, said it has been a slow start for surgeries, but he expects the procedures to pick up again.
“Based on our current surgery schedule, we will see a big jump in the number of (surgery) cases beginning next Monday,” Dooley said in an email. “We are prepared from a staffing standpoint to manage the case volume.”
Surgical patients can have one masked visitor, but safety precautions and screenings are still being done, Dooley said.
“All pre-admission testing for surgeries is now being done either over the telephone or, if a patient needs to come in for lab work, EKG or other testing, we are now performing that testing in a building that is separate from the hospital itself,” Dooley said.
Staff members continue to wear face masks and personal protective equipment. Temperature checks on employees and physicians are still being performed, and social distancing and frequent area disinfections are also happening, Dooley said.
The total number of cases in Florida was 38,828 Thursday, with 1,539 reported deaths statewide. Four people have died in Putnam County since the coronavirus outbreak.
Residents who have questions regarding COVID-19 can call the county hotline 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. daily at 329-1904.