OKEECHOBEE- Okeechobee County Commissioners received a COVID-19 update from Okeechobee Florida Department of Health (FDOH) interim administrator Bret A. Smith at their Aug. 12 board meeting.

According to Smith, in the last seven days, Okeechobee has had 212 COVID-19 cases, up 39% from the previous week. Positivity rate of tests in Okeechobee were 18%.

The interim administrator said that there were 44 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Okeechobee over the last seven days.

“Severity differs,” said Smith of those hospitalized. “But I did check today and as of last night the ICU was full and they have overflowed into TCU.”

“They had 13 patients in ICU,” added Board Chairman Terry Burroughs. “They only have an occupation of 10. So they’ve overflowed.”

Commissioner Burroughs went on to say that he had a conversation with Raulerson Hospital CEO Brian Melear about the number of patients coming through his building.

“I talked to Brian,” began Burroughs. “He’s got like 30 positives in there and most of them are younger population. Ninety-three percent of them have not been vaccinated. In terms of his emergency room, on Monday he had 102 people come through. And he’s had eighty plus every day since that time.”

“His reference this morning was kind of interesting,” continued Burroughs on his conversation with Brian Melear. “Based on some of the calls he was on yesterday, on last year’s covid strain one person would spread it to one to two people. This new strain is incredibly infectious, and it’s one person to five to nine infections. So I think people should be very cautious. We’re not trying to put mandated masks in and all that kind of stuff. The issue is you need to be cautious. And if you determine that vaccination is what you need to be doing then we would encourage it”

Okeechobee's FDOH interim administrator Smith agreed that vaccinations help.

“I say this over and over again,” Smith stated. “People need to get vaccinated. You need to get vaccinated. I know there’s a lot of people out there ranting and raving against the vaccine. There’s nothing wrong with getting a vaccine. I encourage everyone to get it.”

Smith gave credit to his staff at the health department for their effort, saying they’ve been working 12-hour days with this new surge.

“The staff at the health department is doing a tremendous job," Smith said. "This is a tough battle and they are fighting the good fight.”