COVID-19 in Florida: 5,539 new cases, 118 more dead

Florida reported 5,539 new coronavirus cases on Sunday and another 118 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,909,221 cases since the pandemic began.

The seven-day average for new cases has been declining since Jan. 8.

South Florida

Palm Beach County: 413 additional cases and 2 more deaths. The county now has 120,735 confirmed cases and 2,501 deaths, including 44 non-residents.

Broward County: 756 additional cases and 16 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 194,992 cases and 2,431 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 41 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,501 additional cases and 7 new deaths. The county now has 410,717 confirmed cases and 5,466 deaths, including 37 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 6.40% on Sunday, up from 5.61% 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 84,738 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 97,475 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 6,700 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.04%. That’s up from 5.80% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 11,240 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.73%. That’s up from 6.27% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 18,407 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.97%. That’s up from 5.90% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 30,852 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 554 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Sunday 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. 25 for deaths per 100,000 residents and No. 22 for cases per 100,000 residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Sunday, there were 3,679 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 551, Palm Beach County had 251 and Miami-Dade had 600.

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 November and December.

Vaccines

In Florida, 1,330,982 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 6.20% of the population.

So far, 1,642,800 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 7.65% of the population.