State reports 7,486 new cases, 142 more deaths

By Wayne K. Roustan

Florida reported a significant drop in the number of new cases and deaths Saturday compared to Friday.

Florida reported 7,486 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and another 142 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,771,359 cases since the pandemic began.

The seven-day average for new cases has been declining since January 8.

South Florida

South Florida reported 2,354 new cases on Tuesday.

531 additional cases and 0 more deaths. The county now has 110,639 confirmed cases and 2,290 deaths, including 41 non-residents.

797 additional cases and 12 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 178,116 cases and 2,198 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 36 non-residents.

1,470 additional cases and 15 new deaths. The county now has 382,186 confirmed cases and 5,011 deaths, including 32 non-residents.

Testing and positivity

Public health experts say the virus is considered under control when the COVID-19 test positivity rate is under 5%. But since Oct. 29, Florida has exceeded 5% in its widely publicized calculation for assessing the rate for testing of residents.

The state reported a daily positivity rate of 6.25% on Saturday, up from 5.80% the day before. This method of calculating positivity counts new infections only, but also counts repeat negative tests, which skews the figure downward.

According to the state, the new reported case numbers reflect the results of 118,447 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 188,595 results reported the day before.

Test results for 7,595 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.83%. That’s up from 5.96% the previous day.

Test results for 12,343 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.59%. That’s up from 5.97% the previous day.

Test results for 23,637 residents were reported Sa t u rd a y, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.12%. That’s down from 7.30% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 27,599 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 459 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Saturday happened over several weeks but were just confirmed in the past day.

Florida reported 227 additional deaths from COVID after reporting 153 more on Monday.

Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida ranks No. 25 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 24 for cases per 100K residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Saturday, there were 5,436 people hospitalized in Florida with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

In South Florida, Broward County reported 612, Palm Beach County had 376 and Miami-Dade had 833.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide, then dipped as low as 2,011 on Oct. 19. The numbers steadily increased throughout November and December.