State reports 6,017 new COVID-19 cases

66 more people die

The number of new daily COVID19 cases in Florida continued to hover around 6,000 during the past week, even as vaccinations increased across the state.

Florida reported 6,017 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and another 66 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,077,032 cases since the pandemic began. In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 6,490 on Friday.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,628 new cases Saturday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in

South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 433 additional cases and 2 more deaths. The county now has 132,961 confirmed cases and 2,713 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 783 additional cases and 14 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 217,060 cases and 2,745 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 46 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,412 additional cases and 10 new deaths. The county now has 449,891 confirmed cases and 5,942 deaths, including 42 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 6.31% on Saturday, up from 6.10% 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 93,055 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 104,286 results reported the day before.

The positivity rate has been rising in South Florida counties, particularly in Broward County.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 6,315 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.57%. That’s up from 4.97% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 10,977 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.16%. That’s up from 6.76%

the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 20,511 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.78%. That’s down from 6.80% the previous day.

Deaths

The numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients and deaths in South Florida have declined.

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 33,652 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 654 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.

Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida ranks No. 23 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 16 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 2,894 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 450, Palm Beach County had 178 and Miami-Dade had 538. Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide.

Vaccines

More than 5.67 million people in Florida have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In Florida, 2,589,434 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 12.06% of the population. So far, 3,501,600 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 16.30% of the population.