State reports 6,772 new COVID-19 cases and another 44 deaths
The number of new COVID cases dropped slightly Wednesday from the previous day but remains significantly higher than the daily count a month ago.
Florida reported 6,772 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday and another 44 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,141,686 cases since the pandemic began.
Wednesday’s daily count of new cases represents nearly 2,300 fewer cases than the previous day, but it also represents test results of nearly 27,000 fewer people.
In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 6,420 on Wednesday, rising steadily since March 14 when the seven-day average was 4,545 new cases.
South Florida
South Florida counties reported 2,455 new cases Wednesday, compared with 2,380 new cases a week ago. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.
Palm Beach County: 457 additional cases and 3 more deaths. The county now has 137,132 confirmed cases and 2,756 deaths, including 52 non-residents.
Broward County: 806 additional cases and 10 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 225,352 cases and 2,779 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 46 non-residents.
Miami-Dade County: 1,192 additional cases and 3 new deaths. The county now has 464,557 confirmed cases and 6,039 deaths, including 43 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 7.44% on Wednesday, down from 8.16% 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 90,357 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 111,942 results reported the day before.
The positivity rate has been rising in South Florida counties and is now close to 7%.
Palm Beach County: Test results for 6,504 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.86%. That’s down from 7.13% the previous day.
Broward County: Test results for 11,036 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.32%. That’s down from 8.25% the previous day.
Miami-Dade County: Test results for 17,399 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.87%. That’s down from 7.76% the previous day.
Deaths
The numbers of daily deaths in South Florida have declined after peaking in August 2020 and January 2021.
The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 34,164 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 665 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Wednesday 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 Wednesday, there were 3,258 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 459, Palm Beach County had 213 and Miami-Dade had 610.
Hospitalizations hit a high in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide. Hospitalizations had hovered at about 3,000 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in recent months but that number has slightly increased in the last week.
Vaccines
More than 7.3 million people in Florida have received one or more doses of a COVID vaccine.
In Florida, 2,883,560 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 13.43% of the population. So far, 4,565,915 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 21.26% of the population.