ORLANDO, Fla. – One Central Florida health expert is predicting another surge in cases in the coming weeks — all because he said Floridians and many people across the country have let the guards down, on top of recent spring break crowds.
“It’s not just spring break doing this, it’s all of us. Nobody is wearing a mask, almost none of us,” said Dr. Todd Husty, who is an EMS and medical director for several cities in Seminole County.
[TRENDING: Florida woman placed boy in dryer, making him go ‘round and round,’ officials say | Kmart now down to 3 stores. Here’s where they’re located | Become a News 6 Insider (it’s free!)]
Though, he wants to be clear the upward trend we’re seeing is still way down compared to the latest omicron surge last year.
“My experts who I’ve listened to, who have been right-on, have predicted late April, early May, a spike and look, we’re starting to creep up,” Husty said. ”I think we’ll start doing more testing next week because I think it’s going to go up.”
Here in Florida, stats from the Florida Department of Health show an upward trend in positive cases in the past few weeks.
There were more than 8,000 positive cases the week of March 17 compared to more than 11,000 cases statewide the week of April 7.
This coming as the Altamonte Springs city manager said its wastewater system, which covers north Orange County and south Seminole County, has detected a larger increase in the amount of the omicron variant in the past month.
“It’s not anywhere close to where it was during omicron (surge) but each time we see an increase in the concentration levels in the sewage, we see an increase in the number of cases,” City manager Frank Martz said.
Husty said the COVID detection in the wastewater is surely a sign, but the data for now may be slanted because not a lot of people are getting tested.