State reports 5,065 new cases, 92 deaths

The number of new COVID-19 cases remains stable in Florida and the number of additional resident deaths reported Thursday was below 100, continuing a positive trend.

Florida reported 5,065 new coronavirus cases on Thursday and another 92 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,962,651 cases since the pandemic began.

The seven-day average for new cases has been declining since January 8 when it hit a highpoint of 17,991. On Thursday, the seven-day average for new cases was 4,631.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,288 new cases Thursday.

Palm Beach County: 406 additional cases and 7 more deaths. The county now has 124,636 confirmed cases and 2,581 deaths, including 46 non-residents.

Broward County: 708 additional cases and 8 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 201,969 cases and 2,563 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 43 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,174 additional cases and 0 new deaths. The county now has 423,714 confirmed cases and 5,660 deaths, including 41 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 5.00% on Thursday, down from 5.21% 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 newly reported case numbers reflect the results of 101,363 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 93,907 results reported the day before.

The positivity rate in South Florida’s counties has been hovering around 6%, but on Thursday it declined to lower than 5% in Palm Beach county.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 8,012 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 4.99%. That’s down from 5.57% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 11,790 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.01%. That’s up from 5.35% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 20,698 residents were reported Thursday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.80%. That’s up from 5.77% the previous day.

Deaths

After weeks where the daily death count in Florida exceeded 150, the number has been declining in March and dropped below 100 on Thursday.

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 32,040 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 599 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.

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 Thursday, there were 3,161 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 465, Palm Beach County had 219 and Miami-Dade had 563.

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 declined in February and have been stable in March.

Vaccines

As more doses arrive in Florida and more vaccination sites open, a larger share of the population has received a first shot.

In Florida, 1,753,286 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 8.16% of the population. So far, 2,031,584 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 9.46% of the population.