State reports 6,790 new cases; daily spike not seen since early March
After weeks of fewer new COVID-19 cases per day, Florida reported a daily jump in case counts, last seen in early March.
Florida reported 6,790 new coronavirus cases on Thursday and another 69 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,064,525 cases since the pandemic began.
In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 5,299 on Thursday, up from 4,759 a week ago.
South Florida
South Florida counties reported 2,984 new cases Thursday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.
Palm Beach County: 517 additional cases and 4 more deaths. The county now has 132,098 confirmed cases and 2,705 deaths, including 52 non-residents.
Broward County: 889 additional cases and 10 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 215,488 cases and 2,711 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 45 non-residents.
Miami-Dade County: 1,578 additional cases and 23 new deaths. The county now has 447,042 confirmed cases and 5,920 deaths, including 42 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 6.41% on Thursday, down from 6.67% 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 107,491 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 77,448 results reported the day before.
The positivity rate dropped slightly in Palm Beach and Broward counties but rose in Miami-Dade County, Thursday’s report shows.
Palm Beach County: Test results for 8,743 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.73%.
That’s down from 6.19% the previous day.
Broward County: Test results for 12,951 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.86%. That’s down from 7.48% the previous day.
Miami-Dade County: Test results for 22,089 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.11%. That’s up from 6.43% the previous day.
Deaths
The numbers of hospitalized COVID patients and deaths in South Florida have declined. The daily death toll has been under 100 since mid-March. On Thursday health officials reported 69 new resident deaths.
The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 33,494 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 649 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.
Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida ranks No. 23 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 16 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 2,844 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 420, Palm Beach County had 165 and Miami-Dade had 522 people hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19.
Hospitalizations hit a peak in Florida in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide.
Vaccines
As of Thursday, more than 5.87 million people in Florida have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
Health officials report 2,564,417 people in Florida have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 11.94% of the population.
So far, 3,307,323 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 15.40% of the population.