Virus claims 106 more Florida residents
State adds 3,266 new cases to push past 704K
Florida added 3,266 coronavirus cases Tuesday to push the statewide total to 704,568 infected. With 106 new virus fatalities reported statewide, 14,143 Florida residents are now dead.
Each report includes deaths from several previous days, as it can take two weeks or more for fatalities to be logged.
As local counties adjusted their emergency orders Monday to eliminate potential fines after such penalties were banned by Gov. Ron DeSantis across Florida, officials in Orange County cautioned residents that they are tracking superspreader events where they believe large numbers of people became infected.
The Florida Department of Health hasn’t reported a daily increase above 10,000 infections since July 25. But testing has declined statewide, to a daily average of about 23,200 so far in September. That’s down from about 32,000 daily tests on average in August and 54,400 a day in July.
Nearly 5.3 million people have been tested in Florida, with 28,452 more tests reported Tuesday compared with the previous day.
Florida will receive 6.4 million antigen tests from the federal government to help the state protect vulnerable residents, DeSantis said Tuesday.
The Florida Department of Health did not immediately release the latest positivity rate on Tuesday. The most recent figures are below. Read more: Florida’s hidden data skews COVID-19 test results
Central Florida on Tuesday added 686 cases for a total of 111,413: 234 new cases in Orange for 40,224; 86 in Polk for19,974; 58 in Osceola for 12,513; 64 in Volusia for 10,898; 44 in Seminole for 9,053; 135 in Brevard for 8,983; 42 in Lake for 7,517; and 23 in Sumter for 2,251.
Central Florida had 17 of Tuesday’s newly reported deaths, bringing the region’s toll to 2,132. Polk County, due to nursing-home outbreaks, has the most coronavirus fatalities in the region with 529, followed by 446 in Orange, 295 in Brevard, 244 in Volusia, 211 in Seminole, 190 in Lake, 148 in Osceola, and 69 in Sumter.
Central Florida accounts for nearly 16% of the cases statewide and 15% of the deaths.
COVID -19 hospitalizations have been steadily falling from mid-July highs of over 8,000.
Across the state, 2,161 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of about11 a.m. Tuesday.
The state’s online tool updates several times throughout the day.
Orange County reported 117 patients hospitalized, Osceola with 66, Seminole with 34, and Lake with 37 as of about about 11 a.m. Tuesday
To date, 43,855 people have been hospitalized in
Florida, the st a t e ’s COVID -19 dashboard shows. But those numbers could include cases that are weeks old.
South Florida, home to 29% of Florida’s population, accounts for about 42% of cases with 293,693 total. That includes 686 new cases reported Tuesday among Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.
South Florida’s reported deaths rose by 26 Tuesday for a total of 5,977, about 42% of the state’s total.
The virus has infected over 33.4 million people and has killed over 1 million worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. Nationwide, over 7.1 million people have been infected and over 205,000 are dead.