JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In the past two weeks, the number of new patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Jacksonville has continued to drop. The decline is not dramatic, and Florida appears to continue to lead the nation in new cases.
In Jacksonville, some steps are being taken to bring the numbers down.
There was a mobile vaccination clinic Thursday in downtown Jacksonville outside of JEA in honor of UF Health Jacksonville CEO Dr. Leon Haley Jr., a former JEA board member who died July 24 in a WaveRunner accident in Palm Beach County. Haley pushed for vaccinations, and now some are listening -- like James Peeples.
Like many others, Peeples, 66, was hesitant at first to get the shot.
“First of all, I wasn’t sure. Second of all, I’ve never really been sick and I’m not trying to get sick. So if this is going to provide me with a little more extension on my life, why not?” Peeples said. “I want to tell everybody go get your shot.”
JEA said 73 people were vaccinated at Thursday’s clinic.
While vaccination numbers are increasing slightly in Jacksonville, hundreds are showing up every day at the Regeneron clinic downtown. The site offers four injections of a lab-made antibody to help fight off COVID-19. It’s for those who recently tested positive, and the hope is it will help hold down hospitalizations.
Records from the city show that 1,716 people have got the treatment in the past 14 days. A record number of people took advantage of the free clinic Wednesday, with 293 doses administered.
The city has also added more testing sites, and News4Jax has learned hundreds are taking advantage of that.
On the first day of operation, 474 people were tested at the Emmett Reed Community Center and 296 people were tested at Cuba Hunter Community Center.
With these steps the city has taken, there have been some improvements in hospitalizations.
At UF Health Jacksonville, there were 169 COVID-19 patients as of Thursday morning. At the same time last week, there were 201.
Dr. Chirag Patel, with UF Health Jacksonville, says that while that looks encouraging, he believes it’s going to change soon.
“I am not taking stock in the downtrend,” Patel said.
Patel said the reason why is overall hospital occupancy across the city is going up.
“Patients are still sick and coming to the hospital,” Patel said.
He adds that pediatric cases across the city appear to be going up, as well.
Patel says what he is seeing in the intensive care units is troubling because those numbers are not dropping.
“The rate of folks in the intensive care unit with COVID and on ventilators continues to actually go up,” Patel said.