16,875 new COVID-19 cases and another 186 new resident deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 23,799 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 370 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Friday happened over several weeks but were just confirmed in the past day.

The number of new COVID19 cases in a single day in Florida continued to rise on Friday, reaching its highest level this week.

Florida reported 16,875 new coronavirus cases on Friday and another 186 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,548,067 cases since the pandemic began.

Health officials on Friday reported 5,285 new cases of COVID-19 in South Florida. South Florida Palm Beach County: 1,213 additional cases and 9 more deaths. The county now has 96,085 confirmed cases and 2,047 deaths, including 29 non-residents.

Broward County: 1,386 additional cases and 10 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 156,452 cases and 1,990 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 35 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 2,685 additional cases and 28 new deaths. The county now has 339,434 confirmed cases and 4,556 deaths, including 28 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 10.14% on Friday, up from 8.61% 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 163,164 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 156,334 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 12,049 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 9.69%. That’s up from 6.26% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 16,127 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 8.61%. That’s up from 7.54% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 30,022 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 8.94%. That’s down from 8.96% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 23,799 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 370 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Friday 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. 24 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 24 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 7,531 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 633, Palm Beach County had 412 and Miami-Dade had 1,077.

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 steadily increased throughout December and into January.

Vaccines

In Florida, 702,681 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 3.27% of the population.

So far, 72,087 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 0.34% of the population.