State reports 5,306 new COVID-19 cases, 77 more deaths

Even as vaccines roll out in the state, the number of new COVID cases per day has remained relatively stable for the last two weeks of April.

Florida reported 5,306 new coronavirus cases on Friday and another 77 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,233,518 cases since the pandemic began.

In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 5,288 on Friday.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 1,864 new cases Friday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 300 additional cases and 3 more deaths. The county now has 143,129 confirmed cases and 2,824 deaths, including 54 non-residents.

Broward County: 636 additional cases and 9 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 235,971 cases and 2,942 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 48 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 928 additional cases and 18 new deaths. The county now has 483,371 confirmed cases and 6,205 deaths, including 46 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. However, the positivity rate has declined slightly from earlier this month.

The state reported a daily positivity rate of 5.66% on Friday, down from 5.73% 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 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, from results reported the day before.

The positivity rate rose slightly on Friday in Palm Beach and Broward Counties.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 5,967 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.04%. That’s up from 5.00% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 11,273 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.72%. That’s up from 5.52% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 17,290 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.37%. That’s down from 5.50% the previous day.

Deaths

The number of people dying per day from COVID-19 remained well below 100 on Friday. Health officials reported 77 additional resident deaths.

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 Friday, there were 3,156 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 432, Palm Beach County had 197 and Miami-Dade had 504.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide.

Vaccines

More than 8.7 million people in Florida have received one or more doses of a COVID vaccine.

In Florida, 2,666,894 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 12.42% of the population.

So far, 6,073,726 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 28.28% of the population.