Florida surpasses 200,000 confirmed cases

It took three months, from early March to June

22, for Florida to cross 100,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases.

It took less than two weeks for the state to go from 100,000 to 200,000 cases — and the positive test rate keeps rising.

The 10,059 confirmed new novel coronavirus cases from Sunday’s Florida Department of Health update, the third-highest single day total, behind Saturday and Thursday, shot the state’s pandemic case number to 200,111.

While there’s been an increase in testing over the last week, there’s also been a massive leap in the positive test rate. The average daily positive test rate from June 21 through June 27 was 9.94%. The average for the next seven days: 14.47%.

Another 29 deaths were reported around the state Sunday, bringing that total to 3,832.

As Broward County reset its single-day high for the second day in row, South Florida accounted for 46.3% of the new cases, but slightly less than a third of the new deaths.

SOUTH FLORIDA COUNTIES

Miami-Dade: As was the case with the entire state, Sunday was MiamiDade’s second-highest single-day of the pandemic, behind only Saturday. Miami-Dade added 2,282 new cases and five deaths.

As of Sunday’s Miami-Dade County New

Normal Dashboard update, the county was in the red flag zone in three categories: trajectory of daily case counts over a 14-day period, two consecutive weeks of a 14-day rolling positive test rate under 10% (22.10%) and 30% of Intensive Care Unit bed capacity available (23.73%).

All numbers have gotten worse this week.

Miami-Dade’s total pandemic counts are 47,011 cases and 1,043 deaths.

Broward’s 1,664 new cases exceeded its previous single-day high, Saturday, by 23.4%. With another three deaths, its pandemic totals are 21,239 and 412, respectively.

Palm Beach County: There were 687 new COVID-19 cases and one death. This county has the state’s third most cases, 16,836, and second most deaths, 543.

Monroe County: With another 30 new cases reported Saturday, there have been 367 COVID-19 cases and five deaths.

HOSPITALIZATIONS

On Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed to the Miami Herald that the state would start reporting current hospitalization numbers for all counties this week.

The change comes following a surge of cases in recent weeks with public health experts and the nonprofit COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer group that has become the mostprolific coronavirus data collector in the country, pressuring the state to start reporting current hospitalizations. That metric, they say, is a clearer way of assessing the pandemic’s severity.

While the state hasn’t started reporting current hospitalization numbers, Miami-Dade has been. That number has risen 21 consecutive days, going from under 600 to 1,538 in that time, according to Miami-Dade County’s

“New Normal” dashboard data.

Friday saw, for the first time, Miami-Dade’s ICU availability moving into red flag territory in the county’s daily coronavirus report. COVID-19 patients are taking up more than 70 percent of available ICU beds.

TESTING

Testing in Florida has seen steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began.

Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus’ progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.

The recommended number of daily tests needed varies among experts, but the dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine has told DeSantis that Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.

On Sunday, Florida’s Department of Health reported another 53,768 more people have been tested.

To date, 2,202,095 people have been tested in Florida. Of the total tested, 200,111 (about 9.1%) have tested positive.