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Coronavirus in Florida latest: State deaths top 200, jail deputy and state prisoners test positive

Here’s what you need to know for Monday, April 6.
 
The entrance to the Pinellas County Jail complex in Clearwater. A detention deputy tested positive Saturday for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said no other employees or inmates have fallen ill.
The entrance to the Pinellas County Jail complex in Clearwater. A detention deputy tested positive Saturday for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said no other employees or inmates have fallen ill. [ Times ]
Published April 6, 2020

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Florida jumped by more than 800 in 24 hours on Sunday. In total, the state has more than 12,000 positive cases and more than 200 deaths, including one additional death in Pinellas County.

Pinellas jail deputy tests positive

An Pinellas County detention deputy tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, on Saturday. It’s the first reported positive COVID-19 case among jails in the Tampa Bay region.

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the county is taking necessary precautions to prevent any possible spread among jail inmates or deputies.

State prisoners test positive

At least two state prisoners have now tested positive for COVID-19.

Both prisoners had been locked up at the Blackwater River Correctional Facility near Pensacola, a private prison under the state’s purview run by the GEO Group, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Essential employees in Tampa Bay cities

All three of Tampa Bay’s largest municipalities have divided employees into those who do critical work and those who don’t in the time of the coronavirus. Here’s how the cities are deciding who works during the pandemic.

Retirement mecca The Villages at risk

Everything that defines the Villages now puts the sprawling retirement community’s residents at risk.

If the coronavirus rips through the community, experts say, the Villages’ huge population of highly social seniors could overwhelm the local health care system.

The difference a month makes

The changes the coronavirus brought seemed to come both quickly and slowly during the month of March. Here’s a look back at how the pandemic transformed spring in Tampa Bay.

Florida saw a pandemic coming and prepared. Then state leaders started to cut.

A Tampa Bay Times special report found that as health officials warned that Floridians were at “grave risk” if a pandemic ever hit, the state over the years has dismantled the defenses it built against a coronavirus-like crisis.

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