St. Luice County Expert Dr. Ramgopal’s Recommendation for Easing COVID Restrictions Has Been Met

According to Dr. Ramgopal’s recent testimony to the St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners, COVID-19 restrictions should be lifted.

Dr. Ramgopal says the goal should be under five percent positive or near that range.

Remember when this all started it was to prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed? Then it was to slow the spread? More recently the goal was under ten percent positive cases.

Let’s Look at the Numbers

The total population of St. Lucie is 328,297.

To date, there have been 8,753 cases.

To date, there have been 323 deaths. Half of which have come from nursing homes.

Looking at 8,753 cases / 328,297 population gives St. Lucie County a case rate of 2.67%.

This is well beneath Dr. Ramgopal’s quoted 5% and near his bottom range of 2%.

Let’s look at the death rate. With a total of 323 deaths (casting aside the nursing home deaths) / 328,297 population the average St. Lucie resident’s chance of dying is 0.09%. If nursing home deaths are excluded the death rate is 0.05%.

Recently the WHO has estimated that 10% of the world has been infected. This would mean 32,829 infections in St. Lucie County with only 323 deaths. This means if you caught COVID (even unknowingly) you would have a 0.98% chance of dying.

Removing the nursing home deaths, the infection fatality rate would be 0.5% of dying if infected.

The Numbers Support Ramgopal’s Recommendation to Ease COVID-19 Restriction

Here’s the video from October 6th, 2020 meeting of the St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners.