Florida reports 15,431 new cases South Florida

Florida reported another big daily total for new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, as seniors made frantic attempts to register for the scarce number of vaccination appointments.

Florida reported 15,431 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and another 98 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,392,123 cases since the pandemic began.

The high number of new cases came as the state continued to try to distribute vaccines, in a messy system that has led to breakdowns of phone and computer systems, lines and promises of improvements from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida has received 1,152,000 doses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Of these, 289,773 have been injected, according to the Florida Department of Health’s Tuesday update.

The two vaccines approved for use in the United States require two doses. The state’s vaccine report Tuesday included the first information on the administration of second doses, with 1,987 administered so far.

Palm Beach County: 564 additional cases and 2 more deaths. The county now has 86,839 confirmed cases and 1,952 deaths, including 29 non-residents.

Broward County: 1,193 additional cases and 1 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 143,186 cases and 1,914 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 31 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 3,347 additional cases and 1 new deaths. The county now has 311,606 confirmed cases and 4,284 deaths, including 27 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 12.73% on Tuesday, up from 12.50% 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 119,383 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 89,710 results reported the day before.

PalmBeachCounty: Test results for 5,014 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 10.83%. That’s down from 11.74% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 11,555 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 10.49%. That’s up from 10.45% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 30,478 residents were reported Tuesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 10.96%. That’s down from 10.97% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 22,188 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 327 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. 20 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 23 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 7,343 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 600, Palm Beach County had 423 and Miami-Dade had 1,075.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide, then dipped as low as 2,011 on Oct. 19. The numbers s-teadily increased throughout November and December.