Florida reports 54,994 new cases, adds 262 new deaths to total

Florida reported 54,994 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday and increased its overall death count by 262, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The new death reports, most of which occurred over the past month, brought the 7-day rolling average for daily deaths to 66 in Florida, the highest since early December. Death reports lag behind case reports by several weeks.

On Thursday, 11,597 patients in Florida hospitals had COVID-19, up 33.6% from the previous week, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The number includes patients admitted with the virus and those who tested positive while hospitalized.

The number of intensive care beds in Florida occupied Thursday by COVID-infected patients was 1,473.

Miami-Dade County still had the highest per-capita rate of daily COVID-19 cases of any county in the U.S. on Wednesday — excluding counties with low populations — with a rolling 7-day average of 4,065 cases per 100,000 population. Orange County’s rate per 100,000 was 2,004 on Thursday and Seminole County’s was 1,510. Elsewhere in Central Florida, Lake’s rate was 1,119 while Osceola’s was 2,154.

Overall, Florida ranks sixth-highest among states for average daily per-capita cases.

As for testing positivity rates, Seminole County ranked sixth at 42.31 %, while Orange County was 12th at 40.74%.

As of Thursday, at least 4,933,518 Floridians have been infected by COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic and at least 63,081 have died in total.

Meanwhile, the number of vaccine doses being administered in Florida is averaging 70,759 per day over the past seven days. About 63.9% of Floridians are fully vaccinated and 34.5% have received booster shots.