Florida sees lowest case count in 8 weeks

3,779 COVID-19 results added to state’s total

Florida’s Department of Health on Sunday reported 3,779 new cases of COVID-19 — the lowest daily total in nearly eight weeks.

Sunday was the lowest since June 23, when Florida reported 3,286 new cases. On Sunday, the state reported 104 additional deaths after back-to-back days of over 200 fatalities.

Those daily totals don’t reflect results from the past 24 hours, but rather several days and even weeks for COVID-19 death confirmations.

Florida has reported nearly 570,000 total cases and nearly 9,600 deaths during the coronavirus pandemic, according to state data.

Florida’s daily COVID-19 testing positivity rate — a figure that shows the prevalence of the disease in the population — was 7.79, marking the fourth straight day it’s been recorded below 10 percent. The state processed 58,229 results over the previous day.

According to state data, the positivity rate has stayed below 10 percent in eight of the past 10 days. The highest positivity over the past two weeks was 11.9%, reported Wednesday.

But state officials blamed that on a seven-week backlog of over 4,000 cases dumped into the system by a MiamiDade County lab.

If those cases are excluded, the positivity rate for that day drops to 9.35%.

Florida’s data show an improvement from negative trends last month. The state has hit as high as 15,300 cases, but has not had over 10,000 cases since July

25.

South Florida

South Florida, which accounts for 29% of Florida’s population, reported 1,563 new cases in the past day, or 47.5% of the daily total for the state.

Broward County: 436 new coronavirus cases were reported Sunday, bringing the total to 66,447. The median age of residents infected in the county is 39. A total of 980 residents in Broward have died from the virus, 40 more than reported Saturday.

Palm Beach County: 227 new cases, bringing the total to 39,129. A total of 992 residents have died, three more than reported the previous day. The median age of those infected in the county is 41.

Miami-Dade County:

900 new cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 145,307. A total of 2,057 residents have died. That’s 10 more than reported Saturday. The median age of those infected in the county is 43.

Global view

Worldwide: The novel coronavirus has infected almost 21.5 million people and has killed at least 772,400 worldwide as of

about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center.

U.S.: The United States has over 5.3 million cases, the highest total in the world, and at least 169,754 people are dead, the most fatalities of any country. The U.S. has 4.3% of the world’s population, but 25.1% of the world’s cases and 22% of the world’s deaths.

Other countries with high COVID-19 death tolls are Brazil with over 107,200 victims, Mexico with over 56,500, the United Kingdom with almost 46,700, India with over 49,800, and Italy with over 35,300.