Health leaders expect coronavirus-related deaths to continue to decline

ORLANDO, Fla. — Health leaders are expecting that there will be fewer and fewer COVID-19 related deaths as vaccine distribution continues across the country and state.

On Sunday, Florida reported its lowest death count since around Thanksgiving.

READ: Florida reports third day in a row of less than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases

But if you look at a list of virus-related deaths by month over the last year, you can see Florida really had two major surges in deaths.

The highest monthly death count was in Orange County in July with 227 deaths.

And the devastation continued through August.

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But things started to turn around for a few months, and the death count dropped.

Then around the holidays, it picked back up again.

Orange County saw an increase in December, and with 226 deaths in January, that month finished with only one fewer death than in July.

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“We should be happy that cases and death rates are coming down,” said Dr. Aftab Khan, internal medicine specialist. “But also we have to be very, very vigilant because the variants are lurking over our head.”