Third Hillsborough resident with COVID-19 dies

Black and white COVID-19 coronavirus image from the CDC. — COVID-19 deaths are down compared to the last four years. Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties each saw 100 or more deaths this year. Photo courtesy of CDC for WMNF News.

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According to the state’s Department of Health website, there have been 6,338 positive cases of COVID-19 in Florida as of Tuesday morning. Seventy-seven people have died.

Here’s the county-by-county breakdown of positive coronavirus tests for the Tampa Bay area:

In Hillsborough, there are 291, in Pinellas 144. There are 48 in Manatee, 71 in Sarasota, 23 in Charlotte, 41 in Pasco, 23 in Hernando, 19 in Citrus and 73 in Polk.

The Hillsborough County Health Department says that Monday a 92-year-old female Hillsborough resident diagnosed with COVID-19 passed away. This is the third person to die in the county while diagnosed with coronavirus.

Tampa City Council held an emergency meeting by teleconference Tuesday morning to get an update from city staff on coronavirus response.

Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Nick LoCicero says that the number of COVID-19 cases in the region is likely to continue to climb for more than another month.

“The opportunity to lighten up is not going to happen in the short term. Some of the modeling has shown, and it changed some this morning as a matter of fact, but some of the modeling has shown that we might not see the peak locally until the first part of May. So those models do have a tendency to change. But it is perseverance on the guidelines that are set and making sure that people adhere to those goals and with that, we might see some flattening of that curve. But it is personal responsibility.”

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The city attorney, Gina Grimes, said during the meeting that city residents are operating under a total of 27 executive orders: Thirteen issued by the governor, nine by the county or the county’s emergency group and five by the city.

Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan updated council on the number of police employees who are being monitored for COVID-19.

“As of March 13, we had 68 officers — or actually employees — total of 68 have been monitored. Forty-one of them have been cleared back to work. We currently have 27 under monitoring and 21 of them are quarantined. Five of those 21, there were three officers, who performed CPR on a 71-year-old female who died of COVID-19 and two other officers also performed CPR on a 91-year-old female, no known cause of death at this point. All five of them are on quarantine because of those actions. We had one officer test positive. Overall our calls for service are down. Everything seems to be going as good as it can go under the circumstances.”

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Tampa’s administrator of development and economic opportunity, Carole Post, said that the city’s recently erected tent city for individuals without homes was completely full with 100 occupants.