Coronavirus in Jacksonville: What you need to know for Saturday, Feb. 27
3:15 p.m. Florida adds 118 COVID-19 deaths, 5 in area
lorida s cumulative total of COVID-19 positive tests surpassed 1.9 million Saturday, while the state added 118 more deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the latest statistics from the Florida Department of Health.
Northeast Florida added five deaths in Saturday s daily report, four in St. Johns County and one in Duval County. The health department has now recorded an overall death toll of 31,280, including 30,734 residents of the state.
Even though statistics indicate the pandemic is slowing its spread in Florida, with new daily reported cases down by roughly two-thirds from the start of 2021, the death toll has not abated at a comparable rate. During the past week, the health department added 63 deaths in Duval County. | Read more
“Children and adolescents are experiencing a prolonged state of physical isolation from their peers, teachers, extended families, and community networks,” the authors wrote. “Duration of quarantine, fear of infection, boredom, frustration, lack of necessary supplies, lack of information, financial loss, and stigma appear to increase the risk of negative psychological outcomes.
“Social distancing and school closures may therefore increase mental health problems in children and adolescents, already at higher risk of developing mental health problems compared to adults at a time when they are also experiencing anxiety over a health threat and threats to family employment/income.”
In an email, Rhode Island Health Department spokesman Joseph Wendelken said his office has “not observed an increase in the number of suicides to date” but the proportion of emergency-department visits among Rhode Islanders age 10 to 17 “relating to suicidal thoughts and actions was approxim
CUMBERLAND As the coronavirus pandemic stretched from days to weeks to months without end, the mental health of Amanda Choiniere’s daughter Isabella, 16, and son, Ben, 13, began to suffer. Home-schooling, social isolation and the transformation of life to the netherworld they and many other children now inhabit exacted a price.
“When a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old can no longer play sports that they usually play or interact with friends they usually hang out with on a normal basis, that impacts, of course, their mental health status,” said Choiniere, who works, remotely now, for Adoption Rhode Island.
Ben, who attends middle school, finds himself frequently frustrated, his mother said.