State reports 5,645 new cases, along with 62 additional deaths

Even as more Floridians get vaccinated, the number of new COVID-19 cases per day has not dropped significantly yet.

Florida reported 5,645 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and another 62 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,178,783 cases since the pandemic began.

In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. The seven-day average was 6,267 on Tuesday, nearly the same as a week ago when it was 6,293.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,194 new COVID cases Tuesday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 280 additional cases and 2 more deaths. The county now has 139,479 confirmed cases and 2,777 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 568 additional cases and 8 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 229,641 cases and 2,839 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 47 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,346 additional cases and 9 new deaths. The county now has 472,941 confirmed cases and 6,102 deaths, including 44 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. On Tuesday the test positivity rate dropped slightly but remains above 6%.

The state reported a daily positivity rate of 6.89% on Tuesday, down from 7.90% 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, newly reported case numbers reflect the results of 82,264 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 54,313 results reported the day before.

All three South Florida counties reported a slight drop in positivity rate on Tuesday from the previous day.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 4,327 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.86%. That’s down from 7.50% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 9,780 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.84%. That’s down from 8.02% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 19,917 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.79%. That’s down from 7.12% the previous day.

Deaths

The numbers of new COVID deaths in Florida have declined from the daily counts in January and February of 2021.

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 34,533 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 676 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. 16 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 3,478 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 511, Palm Beach County had 221 and Miami-Dade had 635.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide. As more people in the state are vaccinated, hospitalizations have plunged from the peak, but they have been inching upward over the last week.

Vaccines

With all ages eligible for vaccination, more than 8.1 million people in Florida have received one or more doses of a COVID vaccine.

In Florida, 2,956,696 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 13.77% of the population.

So far, 5,113,056 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 23.81% of the population.