Nearly 12K new infections, 142 more resident deaths

Florida added 11,914 coronavirus cases Wednesday to bring the cumulative total to 1,601,011. With 142 more fatalities, 24,578 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.

COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide are climbing back up toward mid-July highs. Across the state, 7,147 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of about 2:20 p.m. Wednesday. The state’s online tool updates several times throughout the day.

Orange County reported 401 patients hospitalized, Osceola with 192, Seminole with 115, and Lake with 145 as of about 2:20 p.m. Wednesday.

To date, 69,954 people have been hospitalized in Florida, according to the state’s report, which includes 471 newly reported hospitalizations since Tuesday’s update.

Nationwide, 123,820 people were listed as currently hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Tuesday. The figure is a realtime total, not a cumulative one. The number surpassed 100,000 on December 2, and has been over 120,000 at all times since December 28. The COVID-19 Tracking Project updates hospitalization data once a day.

As of the most recent update, 1,011,217 people have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 111,188 people have received the second dose.

To date, 9,716,001 people have been tested in Florida, 38,896 more than Tuesday’s total.

Statewide, the latest positivity rate reported Wednesday for Tuesday’s test results by the Florida Department of Health was 10.75%, but that’s for new cases only and excludes anyone who previously tested positive.

Florida has obscured the true extent of its pandemic by using a misleading measure of positive cases to justify reopening schools and businesses, state data indicates. While the state has publicized that its positivity rate has regularly fallen below 5%, other health organizations are publishing data that shows the rate may be dramatically higher.

Central Florida added 2,703 cases Wednesday for a total of 276,670: 1,133 more in Orange for 95,406; 349 more in Polk for 46,486; 285 in Osceola for 31,205; 225 in Volusia for 28,015; 247 in Brevard for 26,735; 212 in Seminole for 22,373; 184 in Lake for 19,897; and 68 in Sumter for 6,553.

Central Florida had 24 of Wednesday’s newly reported deaths, bringing the region’s toll to 4,044. Polk County, due to nursing-home outbreaks, has the most coronavirus fatalities in the region with 909, followed by 850 in Orange, 594 in Brevard, 478 in Volusia, 378 in Lake, 341 in Seminole, 331 in Osceola and 163 in Sumter.

The virus has infected over 96.3 million people and has killed more than 2 million worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. Nationwide, over 24.2 million people have been infected and over 401,000 are dead.