If you live in Sun N Lake of Sebring, just so you’re forewarned – the District needs to turn the water off in a couple neighborhoods about 8am this morning for a water line repair. If you live in the Vilabella Drive, Catalina Drive, Sarria Ave., Perugia Ave. or Cadagua Drive neighborhoods, water will be shut off around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning and be off the majority of the day. Those streets affected will be under precautionary boil water notice for 72-hours.
A one-car accident got a local woman shipped out of town via Aeromed yesterday after her SUV took a tree off the intersection of State Road 64 and East Arbuckle shortly after 6pm. No details on names and conditions have been released yet.
Highlands County’s Covid-19 count stands at 238 total confirmed cases this morning, representing better than double our infection count on Memorial Day. 17 residents remained in local hospitals as of noon yesterday, representing over a third of the total hospitalizations in the county since counting began back in March. Florida passed a dubious benchmark yesterday, passing the 100,000 mark in total cases. Polk County still leads this central tier of Florida Counties with 2,210 resident confirmed cases, DeSoto County reports 468 infections, Hardee 305 and Glades County follows with 142. The 55-64 year old age group is the biggest age group affected here, with about 20% of confirmed infections in that ten-year age range … all told, almost 80% of Highlands County’s Covid-19 infections fall on adults under 65. Last week, 6.4% percent of Covid-19 tests in Highlands County reported positive – the week before, that number was 4.2%.
The Alan Jay Automotive Network got some well-deserved kudos at the end of last week as the group’s Kia dealership donated over a hundred face shields to personnel at Highlands Regional Medical Center to aid in caring for Covid-19 patients who land in the hospital’s beds. Face shields provide increased coverage beyond medical-grade disposable masks and protect the wearer from aerosolled virus filled droplets that become especially worrisome during intubation procedures. Alan Jay Kia made the delivery Friday as part of Kia’s “Accelerate The Good” program, where over 75,000 face masks are being donated to hospitals around the country.
The Highlands County School Board is doing its second “Town Hall” style meeting looking for input on re-opening the schools this fall. Last night was Lake Placid, tonight they meet at 6pm at Avon Park Middle School. Tomorrow, it’s the same time but at Sebring Middle School. Distancing requires a fifty-person maximum in person, but they’re webcasting and interacting on Zoom – phone numbers and web links are on the School Board’s website and Facebook page, and re-posted on the sheriff’s department Facebook page.