Florida reports fewer than 100 COVID-19 deaths

The number of new cases and additional deaths from COVID-19 continues to decline in Florida.

Monday’s report reflected the third day in a row with fewer than 100 new resident deaths from coronavirus.

Florida reported 3,312 new coronavirus cases on Monday and another 81 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,948,307 cases since the pandemic began.

The seven-day average for new cases has been declining since January 8 when it reached 17,991. On Monday, the seven-day average for new cases was 5,341, almost one-third of what it had been two months ago.

South Florida

South Florida reported 1,573 new cases on Monday.

Palm Beach County: 216 additional cases and 12 more deaths. The county now has 123,520 confirmed cases and 2,568 deaths, including 46 non-residents.

Broward County: 496 additional cases and 12 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 200,139 cases and 2,520 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 43 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 861 additional cases and 2 new deaths. The county now has 420,340 confirmed cases and 5,599 deaths, including 39 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 5.95% on Monday, up from 5.84% 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, newly reported case numbers reflect the results of 58,772 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 70,134 results reported the day before.

The positivity rate in South Florida counties is hovering around 6%.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 3,933 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.85%. That’s up from 5.49% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 7,673 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.78%. That’s down from 6.99% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 15,931 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.25%. That’s up from 5.93% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 31,764 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 585 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Monday 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 100K residents and No. 20 for cases per 100K residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Monday, there were 3,332 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 484, Palm Beach County had 252 and Miami-Dade had 579.

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 through mid-January but have been declining.

Vaccines

On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he estimates about 56% of all seniors in the state have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. He noted a lag and indicated reported numbers may not be as high as the actual people vaccinated.

In Florida, 1,631,196 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 7.59% of the population.

So far, 1,959,490 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 9.12% of the population.