State reports at least 1,735 virus deaths, 40,982 cases

At least 1,735 people in Florida have died of the new coronavirus, the state reported Monday, an increase of 14 over the previous 24 hours.

Most of the deaths were in South Florida, a region approaching a grim benchmark: 1,000 deaths.

The Department of Health also reported Monday that Florida has had a total of 40,982 cases — 386 more than on Sunday.

South Florida leads the state in the number of cases. As of Monday, Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties have had 23,938 cases, 225 more than the day before.

State reports show the three counties accounted for 986 deaths as of Monday, an increase of five over the previous 24 hours.

The Department of Health released Monday show:

Miami-Dade County, the Florida coronavirus hot spot, has had 14,167 cases, an increase of 160 from Sunday. The number of deaths in Miami-Dade, 490, is reports three more than it was a day earlier. Miami-Dade County, which has 13% of the state’s population, has 35% of the state’s cases and 28% of the deaths.

Broward has had 5,882 cases, 24 more than Sunday. It has had 258 deaths, one more than the day before.

Palm Beach County has had 3,889 cases, 19 more than Sunday. It has had 238 deaths, one more than Sunday.

New case, death trends

Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, home to 29.9% of Florida’s population, have had 56.8% of the state’s coronavirus deaths and 58.4% of the cases.

The three counties’ shares of the totals have decreased slightly in the past two weeks. On April 27, South Florida had 58.1% of the state’s deaths and 59.5% of the cases.

The number of new cases statewide and in South Florida was lower in the last seven days than in the previous three weeks. The number of deaths in the past seven days is higher than in any of the previous three weeks.

Florida deaths: The 1,735 deaths the state reported Monday is an increase of 336 from May 4. In the seven days that ended on May 4, the state reported 311 deaths. In the week that ended on April 27, there were 299 deaths, and in the week that ended on April 13, there were 319 deaths.

Florida cases: The 40,982 cases as of Monday is 4,085 higher than on May 4. In the seven days that ended on May 4, the state reported 4,759 new cases. In the week that ended on April 27, there were 5,478 new cases, and in the week that ended on April 13, there were 6,059 new cases.

South

Florida deaths: ago. In the seven days that ended on May 4, the state reported 150 deaths in South Florida. In the week that ended on April 27, there were 176 South Florida deaths, and in the week that ended on April 13, there were 195 deaths in the region.

South Florida cases: The number of South Florida cases on Monday, 23,938, is 2,152 higher than a week earlier. In the seven days that ended on May 4, the state reported 2,659 new cases in South Florida. In the week that ended on April 27, there were 3,420 new South Florida cases, and in the week that ended on April 13, there were 3,670 new cases in the region.

Model looks forward

The latest version of a coronavirus model, released Sunday by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, projects nearly 5,400 deaths in Florida, with a range between 3,027 and 11,592.

A week ago, the estimate was 3,971. When the state and the nation were mostly shut down, the model projected 1,900 for the state.

Gov. Ron DeSantis downplayed the University of Washington model — and others — on Monday.

“Has that been accurate so far? Have any of the models been accurate so far?” he said at a news conference in Fort Myers. “Let’s just be honest. The models have not been accurate.”

Early in the pandemic, he said widely reported models warned that hundreds of thousands of Floridians would be hospitalized by the end of April. As local governments, and ultimately the state, instituted increasingly stringent closures of businesses and told people to stay home, the numbers never hit the mid six figures. Hospitalizations reported by the state Department of Health never got higher than 6,000 in April.

DeSantis said the models make unreasonable assumptions. And they don’t have a good way to measure significant differences among state policies, he said.

For example, he cited

Florida’s decision to begin Phase 1 reopening on May 4 in the 64 counties outside South Florida, where coronavirus is so prevalent, or Florida’s ban on admitting people with Covid-19 to nursing homes while other states ordered nursing homes to accept infected people.

U.S., global view

The coronavirus death toll in the United States stood at 79,894 on Monday afternoon, including at least than 26,682 victims in the national hot spot of New York. The country’s total number of cases is more than 1.3 million.

The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University reported close to 4.2 million cases worldwide. More than 284,536 people have died.

The United States has 4.3% of the world’s population and 32.3% of the world’s cases.