TAMPA, Fla. — Good morning, Tampa Bay! We made it to the start of another week!
Let's take a look at the top stories you'll need to know.
Attention shoppers! Time to mask up 😷
Because of COVID-19, many businesses have started to require customers to wear a mask or face covering before entering, regardless of whether or not it is required by that county, city or state.
Several nationwide businesses are implementing that policy starting today.
They include:
- CVS
- Kohl's
- Lowe's
- Petco
- PetSmart
- Sam's Club
- Walmart
- Walgreens
Tracking the tropics 🌀
As we continue to track the tropics, we’re keeping an eye on potential tropical development in the Gulf of Mexico that has a low chance of forming into a system this week.
The National Hurricane Center gives this disturbance a 20-percent chance to develop into a tropical system within the next five days.
Even if it does not develop into a system, deeper moisture will head into the Gulf states, and it will at least bring Texas and Louisiana some tropical downpours Thursday and through the weekend.
This potential system will not be a threat to the Tampa Bay Area.
More than 350,000 COVID-19 cases
Florida has surpassed 350,000 positive COVID-19 cases, according to Sunday's report from the state health department.
There have now been 350,047 positive cases of the virus statewide since March.
Another 12,478 new COVID-19 cases were added to the state's total on Sunday.
The Florida Department of Health also confirmed 87 more Floridians have died after testing positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of COVID-19-related deaths in the latest report to 4,982 Floridians. There have also been another two non-resident deaths, bringing the total to 109 non-resident deaths statewide since the pandemic began.
Overall, 5,091 people have died in Florida.
When it comes to testing, Sunday's report showed 115,149 test results were turned in on July 18. Out of those tests, 11.85 percent were positive.
A total of 20,971 people have been hospitalized in Florida at some point during the pandemic.
There has yet to be a day in July where the number of newly-confirmed cases was fewer than 6,000. In fact, the last time that happened was on June 28.