Officials report 11,335 new cases

Number of infections is the highest total seen since late July

Health officials on Thursday reported the highest single-day number of new cases since July 25.

The seven-day average for new cases is nearing the levels last seen in mid-July during the peak of the pandemic in Florida. On July 25, Florida had reported 12,199 cases.

Florida reported 11,335 new coronavirus cases on Thursday and another 129 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,094,697 cases since the pandemic began.

Florida’s seven-day average for new cases, 9381, is more than double what it was just a month ago with 4,341 new cases.

South Florida

South Florida now has 439,774 confirmed cases, nearly 4,000 more than Wednesday.

Palm Beach County: 652 additional cases and 11 more deaths. The county now has 70,966 confirmed cases and 1,783 deaths, including 27 non-residents.

Broward County: 1,097 additional cases and 1 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 117,525 cases and 1,751 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 30 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 2,240 additional cases and 13 new deaths. The county now has 251,283 confirmed cases and 3,966 deaths, including 23 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 8.04% on Thursday, down from 8.62% the day before. This method of calculating positivity counts new infections only, but also counts repeat negative tests, which skews the figure downward.

The positivity rate for Florida is now approaching the 9.22% positivity rate reported on Dec. 1.

According to the state, the new reported case numbers reflect the results of 139,689 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 109,484 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 9,149 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.97%. That’s down from 7.35% the previ

ous day.

Broward County: Test results for 15,014 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.35%. That’s down from 7.74% the previous day.

Miami-DadeCounty: Test results for 26,332 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 8.55%. That’s up from 7.69% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 19,591 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 260 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.

The seven-day average for people who died from the virus has been rising through December.

Hospitalizations

As of Thursday, there were 4,560 people hospitalized in Florida with a primary diagnosisofCOVID-19,according tothestateAgencyforHealth

Care Administration.

In South Florida, Broward County reported 420, Palm Beach County had 302 and Miami-Dade had 812.

Hospitalizations for COVID hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide, then dipped as low as 2,011 on Oct. 19. The number of new hospitalizations for the virus has been steadily increasing throughout December.