7,788 new cases and 119 more dead as state tops 1.7M cases

State officials reported a substantial drop in cases Sunday compared to the previous day, but deaths were up by 13.

Saturday’s tally listed 106 additional deaths and 15,019 new cases — nearly twice as many as reported on Sunday.

Florida reported 7,788 new coronavirus cases on Sunday and another 119 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,721,377 cases since the pandemic began.

The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country in the world. As of Sunday, more than 26 million Americans have tested positive for COVID19 and more than 440,600 people have died across the U.S., as reported by Johns Hopkins University.

Worldwide, more than 102.8 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 2.2 million people have died from the coronavirus.

The U.S. accounts for roughly one of every four cases reported worldwide and one of every five deaths.

India has reported the second most cases, with nearly 10.7 million, followed by Brazil with 9.1 million. But Brazil has suffered more deaths, with a tally of 223,945 compared to 154,274 in India.

In Florida, the seven-day average for new cases has been declining since Jan. 8.

South Florida

South Florida reported 2,354 new cases on Tuesday.

Palm Beach County: 551 additional cases and no more deaths. The county now has 107,242 confirmed cases and 2,202 deaths, including 36 non-residents.

Broward County: 782 additional cases and 10 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 172,864 cases and 2,128 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 36 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,478 additional cases and 29 new deaths. The county now has 372,120 confirmed cases and 4,906 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 5.54% on Sunday, down from 6.62% 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 138,905 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 222,516 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 10,015 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.41%. That’s down from 6.80% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 14,162 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.62%. That’s down from 6.41% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 26,446 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.55%. That’s down from 5.72% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 26,479 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 436 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Sunday 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. 25 for deaths per 100,000 residents and No. 24 for cases per 100,000 residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Sunday, there were 6,022 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 640, Palm Beach County had 408 and Miami-Dade had 854.

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.

Vaccines

In Florida, 1,354,584 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 6.31% of the population.

So far, 296,782 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 1.38% of the population.