The Panama City area’s coronavirus case incidence rate is the sixth highest in the country.
The New York Times’s COVID-19 tracker shows 90 daily new cases per 100,000 people in the last two weeks.
That number is calculated using state and county health department data.
Bay County has a two-week average of 160 daily new cases. More than 300 people have died of the virus since the pandemic began, with 41 of those deaths reported in the last fourteen days.
The county’s test positivity rate is 18 percent for that same time period. But due to limited testing, that figure isn’t a reliable indicator of the virus’s prevalence in the community.
A high positivity rate instead suggests a need for more widespread testing.
Local elected officials have not limited capacity inside businesses. And they’ve not put in place a mask requirement.
