10,577 new cases and 71 more deaths

Florida reported 10,577 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and another 71 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has nowreported 1,116,973 cases since the pandemic began.

South Florida

Palm Beach County: 556 additional cases and no additional deaths. The county now has 72,247 confirmed cases and 1,793 deaths, including 27 non-residents.

Broward County: 917 additional cases and 2 more deaths. Broward has a knowntotal of 119,429 cases and 1,760 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 30 non-residents.

Miami- Dade County:

2,059 additional cases and 6 newdeaths. Thecountynow

has 255,462 confirmed cases and 3,988 deaths, including

23 non-residents.

Testing and positivity

Public health experts say the virus is considered under

control when the C OVID -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 7.89% on Saturday, up from7.88% the day before. This method of calculating positivity counts new infections only, but also counts repeat negative tests, which skews the figure downward.

According tothestate, the newreported case numbers reflect the results of 132,615

COVID-19 tests of Florida residents receivedfromlabs in the past day, down from

144,884results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 8,711 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.31%. That’s down

from7.85% thepreviousday. Broward County: Test results for 13,588 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of6.86%. That’supfrom

6.37% the previous day. Miami-DadeCounty: Test results for 25,077 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of8.17%. That’supfrom

7.91% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 19,785 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 264non-residentshave died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Saturday happened over several weeks but were just confirmed in the past day.

Hospitalizations

AsofSaturday, therewere

4,624people hospitalized in Florida with aprimary diagnosis of COVID-19, according to the state Agency for HealthCare Administration.

InSouthFlorida, Broward County reported 430, Palm Beach County had 277 and Miami-Dade had 812.

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.