7,711 new COVID-19 cases, 228 more deaths

Florida reported 7,711 new coronavirus cases on Thursday and another 228 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,752,330 cases since the pandemic began.

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

South Florida reported 2,354 new cases on Tuesday.

Palm Beach County: 634 additional cases and 26 more deaths. The county now has 109,219 confirmed cases and 2,278 deaths, including 40 non-residents.

Broward County: 838 additional cases and 14 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 176,144 cases and 2,175 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 36 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,447 additional cases and 23 new deaths. The county now has 377,999 confirmed cases and 4,974 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 8.76% on Thursday, up from 7.77% 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 86,631 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 87,088 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 6,352 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 9.82%. That’s up from 7.66% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 8,963 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 9.36%. That’s up from 7.08% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 18,059 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.74%. That’s up from 7.34% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 27,247 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 451 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Thursday 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 Thursday, there were 5,823 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 643, Palm Beach County had 410 and Miami-Dade had 879.

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, 1,367,011 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 6.36% of the population.

So far, 421,315 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 1.96% of the population.