Florida adds more than 4K virus cases, 87 more deaths

Florida reported 4,044 newcoronavirus cases and 87 more resident deaths on Saturday.

To date, 15,917 residents have died.

With 201 non-resident fatalities, the combined state toll is 16,118.

The Florida Department of Health has tracked 752,481 infections statewide to date.

With a population of about 21.5 million, about one in 29 people in the state have now been infected. That number is closer to one in 41 nationally and one in 200worldwide.

Saturday’s report marks the first daily case increase over 4,000 since Aug. 22, which had 4,311 new cases posted. 5,570 cases were posted Oct. 11, but thatwas due to the state delayed a daily report that week, prompting the health department to combine two days’ worth of cases, deaths and other figures into a single report.

There is a lag time between all daily figures reported by the state, which could include cases that areweeks old.

COVID-19 deaths, for example, are reported sometimes as much as a month or more after the actual day of death.

Over 5.7 million people have been tested in Florida, with 30,422 more tests reported Saturday compared with the previous day.

Testing has declined statewide in the past month to a daily average of about 23,600 since Sept. 1. That’s down from about 32,000 daily tests on average inAugust and 54,400 a day inJuly.

Statewide, the latest positivity rate reported by the Florida Department of Health was 5.21%, but that’s for new cases only and excludes anyone who previously tested positive. For all cases including retests of those previously infected, the latest positivity rate is 6.39%.

Central Florida on Saturday added 771cases for a total of 121,249: 258 new cases in Orange for 43,302; 141 in Polk for 21,713; 80 in Osceola for 13,436; 84 in Volusia for 11,903; 81 in Brevard for 10,349; 69 in Seminole for 9,674; 47 in Lake for 8,130; and 11 in Sumter for 2,742.

Central Floridahad17 of Saturday’s newly reported deaths, bringing the toll to 2,470.

Polk County, due to nursing-home outbreaks, has the most coronavirus fatalities in the region with 582, followed by 530 in Orange, 345 in Brevard, 304 in Volusia, 233 in Seminole, 216 in Lake, 181 in Osceola, and 79 in Sumter.

Central Florida accounts for 16% of the cases statewide and 15% of the deaths.

South Florida, home to 29% of Florida’s population, accounts for about 41% of cases with 307,583 total. That includes 1,127 region’s new cases reported Saturday among MiamiDade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.

South Florida’s reported deaths rose by 32 on Saturday for a total of 6,530, about 41% of the state’s total.

COVID-19 hospitalizations had been steadily falling from mid-July highs of over 8,000, but have leveled off to about 2,000 in the last month.

Across the state, 2,037 people were hospitalized withCOVID-19 as of about 11 a.m. Saturday.

That includes 137 in Orange County, 68 in Osceola, 37 in Lake and 25 in Seminole counties. The state’s online tool updates several times throughout the day.

To date, 46,976 people have been hospitalized in Florida, the state’s COVID-19 dashboard shows. But those numbers could include cases that areweeks old.

The virus has infected over 39 million people and has killed more than 1.1 million worldwide, according to the JohnsHopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. Nationwide, over 8 million people have been infected and over 218,000 are dead.