Cases tick up, deaths dip as vaccine efforts continue statewide

The number of new COVID-19 cases per day rose slightly in the past week, but the number of deaths dropped, as vaccines continue to roll out across the state.

Florida reported 7,411 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and another 53 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,203,913 cases since the pandemic began.

In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 5,592 on Saturday.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,912 new cases Saturday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 557 additional cases and 2 more deaths. The county now has

141,250 confirmed cases and 2,794 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 859 additional cases and 1 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 232,598 cases and 2,908 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 48 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,496 additional cases and 8 new deaths. The county now has

477,782 confirmed cases and 6,141 deaths, including 44 non-residents.

Testing, positivity

Public health experts say the virus is considered under control when the COVID19 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 6.25% on Saturday, up from 5.95% 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 117,497

COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 82,646 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

8,683 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.32%. That’s up from 5.32% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 15,324 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.63%. That’s down from 5.84% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for

23,859 residents were reported Saturday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.21%. That’s down 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 34,812 Floridians have died from

COVID-19.

In addition, 685 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 3,271 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 460, Palm Beach County had 194 and Miami-Dade had 568.

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, 2,816,437 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 13.11% of the population.

So far, 5,554,268 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 25.86% of the population.