Florida blows past record with more than 5,500 cases

Florida saw a record day adding 5,508 positive coronavirus cases and reported another 44 deaths, according to the state Department of Health on Wednesday.

The increase in cases is more than 1,400 over the previous record daily tally of COVID-19 infections and raises the state total to date to 109,014.

The state also reported that about 15.9% of Tuesday’s new patients were positive for COVID-19, more than 3% higher than any infection rate in the last month.

The 44 new deaths raised Florida’s death toll to 3,281 including five more in Central Florida: a 62-year-old woman and 89-year-old person of unknown gender in Orange County; an 89-year-old woman and 65-year-old man in Polk; and a 92-year-old woman in Osceola County.

To be clear, the 44 deaths did not all happen on Tuesday, just reported since Tuesday. It has taken as many as two weeks for a coronavirus-related death to be reported by the state.

The state’s actual deadliest day remains May 4 with 59 fatalities, according to the Florida Department of Health. In April, the U.S. peaked at nearly 2,300 deaths in one day.

The region’s death toll stands at 281 with Polk County leading with 80 followed by Orange’s 53, Volusia’s 53, Osceola’s 24, Lake’s 21, Sumter and Brevard with 17 each and Seminole with 16.

To date, the state has performed 1,669,440 tests, up 27,577 since Tuesday’s report. It has also seen 13,574 hospitalizations, 256 additional since Tuesday, which is the second-most new COVID-19-related hospitalizations since the pandemic began. Gov. Ron DeSantis, though, in a press conference with officials from Orlando Health on Tuesday said that part of that is due to increased testing for all hospitalized patients, some of who may have COVID-19, even if asymptomatic, as elective surgeries increase across the state.

DeSantis discussed the increase in hospitalizations briefly at a Wednesday press conference as well, saying that hospital officials told him about 20% of the COVID-19-related hospitalizations are such cases.

South Florida reported 31 new deaths since Tuesday from its three hard-hit counties: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. Combined they account for 1,786 deaths, which is more than 54 percent of the state’s overall death toll.

The majority of deaths are from those ages 65 and older.

Central Florida now has 14,884 cases, an increase of 1,449 from a day earlier. There are 682 new cases in Orange for a total of 6,056; 191 in Polk for 2,454; 83 in Volusia for 1,369; 124 in Osceola for 1,222; 27 in Seminole for 1,624; 116 in Brevard for 1,022; 59 in Lake for 838; and 11 in Sumter for 299.

South Florida, home to 29% of Florida’s population, remains the hardest-hit region, accounting for 47% of cases with 51,532 total. That includes 2,673 new cases reported Wednesday among Miami-Dade (27,779), Broward (12,217), and Palm Beach (11,536) counties.

Nationwide, there are more than 2.3 million cases with over 121,000 deaths. Worldwide, there are nearly 9.3 million cases, which is more than 1 in 1,000 people on the entire planet, and more than 478,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center.