State on pace to reach 100K total cases today

Florida added another 3,494 new coronavirus cases on Sunday as the state continues its explosive trend of people testing positive for the disease.

The state now has recorded 97,291 people with COVID-19. At the current pace, Florida will almost certainly hit the milestone of 100,000 today.

The latest number of new cases is the third highest daily total since the beginning of the pandemic. But it’s fewer than the highs of 4,049 cases the state reported on Saturday and the 3,822 cases on Friday.

Sunday is the fourth consecutive day with at least 3,000 new cases.

Showing just how rapidly the situation has evolved in Florida, people were jolted during the first week in June when the state consistently was recording consecutive days of 1,000 plus cases.

In South Florida, the hardesthit

area in the state:

■ Broward County: 318 new cases were reported Sunday, bringing the total to 11,155 to date. Three more people died, putting the known death toll at 395.

■ Palm Beach County: 248 new cases were reported, bringing the total to 10,754. A total of 481 have died, unchanged from Saturday.

■ Miami-Dade County:

Florida’s hot spot saw 710 new cases, bringing the total to 25,790. The county also had 10 more deaths, raising the total to 899. Miami-Dade has 13% of the state’s population but 26.5% of the coronavirus cases and 27.6% of the deaths.

On Saturday, Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged the much higher numbers — but sought to allay people’s concerns by offering several explanations.

DeSantis acknowledged community spread of the virus but

emphasized that the “vast majority” of people with new infections are younger adults who don’t have any symptoms of the disease and generally don’t require hospitalization.

He also said the higher number of tests conducted in June is uncovering additional positive results. Florida is in a “much better” position now than it was in March and April, DeSantis said.

U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala, D-Miami, a former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said infections among younger people are serious and shouldn’t be minimized.

“Younger people that can infect older people. And we don’t know enough about this disease. If a young person gets really sick but they don’t have to go to the hospital, we don’t know what the long-term effects are on them,” Shalala said Sunday on the WPLG-Ch. 10 “This Week In South Florida” program. “This is dangerous, and it’s serious.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday that “when the epidemic is expanding, it’s always worse than what you’re measuring.”

“Given the rate of growth that we’ve seen, we know that there’s community spread now underway in states like Florida, Texas, California, for that matter, too, and Arizona. Those are big states that have a lot of cases they’ve been building. And so this is going to be hard to get under control,” Gottlieb said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

“Florida has all the makings of the next epicenter,” said an update last week from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Center. “The risk there is the worst it has ever been in our projections. Miami and Florida’s southeastern counties now join the Tampa/Fort Myers area and Orlando for a fairly widespread transmission event that we forecast will continue throughout the state.”

Testing results and trends

The state Department of Health on Sunday reported a total of 1.6 million people have been tested for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. About 6.1% of the tests have been positive.

The rate is higher in South Florida, where 9.2% of people tested have been diagnosed with the disease, according to the data.

Overall, 97,291 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus in Florida. South Florida, home to 29% of Florida’s population, accounts for 49% of the cases, with a total of 47,699.

In the latest results, received by the state on Saturday and reported Sunday, 9.2% of the people swabbed statewide tested positive. That’s based on 38,055 tests since the previous day.

Four weeks ago, on May 24, 5% of the 14,804 tests were positive.

The most recent report, issued Friday, about coronavirus infections among children shows 39,070 children have been swabbed, and 12.3% of them, or 4,809 tested positive. That’s a oneweek increase of 1,402 cases.

Deaths

Statewide: At least 3,254 people have died from the new coronavirus in Florida, 17 more than on Saturday, the state reported.

Residents: The death total includes 3,161 residents and 93 from outside the state.

Vulnerable population: At least 1,653 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths, about half of the total, are people who lived or worked in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. A total of 11,719 cases have occurred among residents and staff, about 12% of the state’s total cases. The figures come from the the latest weekly report on long-term care facilities, issued Friday.

Hospitalizations

Statewide: A total of 13,325 people have been treated in Florida hospitals for COVID-19 since the start of pandemic-related record-keeping, an increase of 98 since Saturday. The number of available hospital beds has been declining in recent weeks, records show.

South Florida: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties have had 7,178 people hospitalized, 32 more than 24 hours earlier.