Pinellas tops 300 new Covid cases for second consecutive day
November 25, 2020 - Pinellas County added another 331 confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday. It was the second consecutive day that newly confirmed cases have topped 300, and the highest number of new cases since July 24. Three more deaths attributed to Covid-19 were reported in Pinellas County on Wednesday. A total of 884 people have died due to Covid-19 in the county since the pandemic began in March, and there has been a cumulative total of 31,795 cases since then, the Florida Department of Health said. As of Wednesday afternoon, 180 people were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of Covid-19 in Pinellas County hospitals, according to the Florida Agency on Health Care Administration. About 32 percent of the hospital beds in Pinellas and about 23 percent of the adult intensive care beds remain available in Pinellas, AHCA said. The county's positivity rate, or the percent of people who take a Covid test and test positive, remains at about 5.9 percent, higher than the 5 percent threshold that some public health officials say should trigger restrictions, although lower than the 10 percent benchmark in state and federal reopening guidelines.