Florida reports 6,323 new cases and 74 additional deaths

By Wayne K. Roustan

Florida reported 6,323 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and another 74 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,162,067 cases since the pandemic began.

In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 6,193 on Saturday.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,605 new cases Saturday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 413 additional cases and 2 more deaths. The county now has

138,476 confirmed cases and 2,769 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 748 additional cases and 7 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 227,738 cases and 2,816 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 47 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County:

1,444 additional cases and 14 new deaths. The county now has 468,908 confirmed cases and 6,087 deaths, including 44 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 6.88% on Saturday, up from 6.83% 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 92,206 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 106,502 results reported the day before. The positivity rate has been rising in South Florida counties, particularly in Broward County.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 6,784 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.98%. That’s down from 6.12% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 10,799 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.97%. That’s down from 7.12% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County:

Test results for 20,918 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.00%. That’s up from 6.71% the previous day.

Deaths

The numbers of hospitalized COVID patients and deaths in South Florida have declined.

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 34,404 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 670 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Saturday 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. 23 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 16 for cases per 100K residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Saturday, there were 3,251 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 495, Palm Beach County had 203 and Miami-Dade had 583. Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide.

Vaccines

More than 5.67 million people in Florida have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.

In Florida, 2,912,888 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 13.56% of the population. So far, 4,910,971 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated.

That represents about 22.87% of the population.