Report: 3,699 new state cases, 30 more dead

Florida reported 3,699 new coronavirus cases on Sunday and another 30 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,976,808 cases since the pandemic began, or nearly 2 million cases one year after the pandemic hit.

The last time so few deaths were reported was on Nov. 15, when Florida tallied 30 deaths.

The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country in the world. As of Sunday, more than 29.4 million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 534,333 people have died across the U.S., as reported by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. accounts for roughly one of every four cases reported worldwide and one of every five deaths.

Worldwide, nearly 119.6 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 2.65 million people have died while battling the coronavirus.

Brazil has reported the second most cases, with more than 11.4 million, followed by India with 11.3 million. Brazil has reported more deaths, with a tally of 277,102 compared to 158,607 in India and 194,490 in Mexico.

In Florida, the seven-day average for new cases has been on the decline since Jan. 8.

South Florida

Palm Beach County: 360 additional cases and 1 more death. The county now has 125,866 confirmed cases and 2,592 deaths, including 46 non-residents.

Broward County: 496 additional cases and 6 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 203,832 cases and 2,590 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 43 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 751 additional cases and 9 new deaths. The county now has 426,900 confirmed cases and 5,701 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 5.69% on Sunday, up from 5.16% 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 66,725 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 100,089 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 5,477 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.68%. That’s up from 5.12% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 8,700 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.82%. That’s down from 6.32% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 13,962 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.79%. That’s down from 5.88% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 32,255 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 605 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. 24 for deaths per 100,000 residents and No. 20 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 2,805 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 426, Palm Beach County had 177 and Miami-Dade had 499.

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, 1,864,201 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 8.68% of the population.

So far, 2,276,947 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 10.60% of the population.