Florida reports 5,062 new coronavirus cases and 91 additional deaths

Florida reported 5,062 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and another 91 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,052,441 cases since the pandemic began.

In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 5,132 on Tuesday.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,333 new cases

Tuesday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 331 additional cases and 1 more death. The county now has 131,235 confirmed cases and 2,697 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 722 additional cases and 5 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 213,880 cases and 2,679 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 45 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,280 additional cases and 30 new deaths. The county now has 444,487 confirmed cases and 5,887 deaths, including 42 nonresidents.

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 6.36% on Tuesday, down from 7.58% 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 newly reported case numbers reflect the results of 80,797 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 47,679 results reported the day before.

The positivity rate has been rising in South Florida counties. Earlier in the month, the rate had been averaging lower than 6% but it now exceeds that in all three counties.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 4,830 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.75%. That’s up from 5.98% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 9,799 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.35%. That’s down from 8.00% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 19,720 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.48%. That’s down from 7.59% the previous day.

Deaths

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

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 33,338 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 645 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Tuesday 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. 17 for cases per 100K residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Tuesday, there were 2,922 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 419, Palm Beach County had 199 and Miami-Dade had 550.

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 vaccine.

In Florida, 2,537,765 people have received only their first dose of the vaccine, or about 11.82% of the population.

So far, 3,141,836 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated.

That represents about 14.63% of the population.