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Panama City COVID-19 Outbreak Among Worst In Nation

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Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Facebook / LEAD Coalition of Bay County

The Panama City area's coronavirus case incidence rate is the sixth highest in the nation, according to The New York Times' COVID-19 data tracker.

Panama City's coronavirus outbreak remains among the nation's most severe.

The metropolitan area’s coronavirus case incidence rate is the sixth highest in the country. The New York Times’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, according to the Times. More than 300 people in the county have died from the virus since the pandemic began, with 41 of those deaths reported in the last fourteen days.

The county’s two-week test positivity is 18%. But due to self-selected testing, that figure isn’t a reliable indicator of the virus’s prevalence in the community. A high positivity rate suggests a need for random, widespread testing.

Local elected officials have not limited capacity inside businesses. And no local ordinance requiring people to wear face coverings in public is currently in place.


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Valerie Crowder is a freelance reporter based in Panama City, Florida. Before moving to Florida, she covered politics and education for Public Radio East in New Bern, North Carolina. While at PRE, she was also a fill-in host during All Things Considered. She got her start in public radio at WAER-FM in Syracuse, New York, where she was a part-time reporter, assistant producer and host. She has a B.A. in newspaper online journalism and political science from Syracuse University. When she’s not reporting the news, she enjoys reading classic fiction and thrillers, hiking with members of the Florida Trail Association and doing yoga.