COVID-19 in Florida: 4,943 new cases and 36 more dead

Florida reported 4,943 new coronavirus cases on Sunday and another 36 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,044,005 cases since the pandemic began.

Florida will open the COVID19 vaccine to people 40 years and up starting Monday and then to all adults on April 5, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week. Starting that first Monday in April, everyone 18 and up will be eligible to receive a vaccine in Florida.

“We are ready to take this step,” DeSantis said.

The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths than any other country in the world. As of Sunday, more than 30.2 million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 549,0155 people have died across the U.S., as reported by Johns Hopkins University.

Worldwide, more than 126.9 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 2.78 million people have died while battling the coronavirus.

Brazil has reported the second most cases, with more than 12.4 million, followed by India with 11.9 million. Brazil has reported more deaths, with a tally of 310,550 compared to 201,429 in Mexico and 161,552 in India.

South Florida

Palm Beach County: 369 additional cases and no more deaths. The county now has 130,727 confirmed cases and 2,687 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 706 additional cases and 1 more death. Broward has a known total of 212,641 cases and 2,669 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 45 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,062 additional cases and 17 new deaths. The county now has 442,337 confirmed cases and 5,856 deaths, including 42 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 6.80% on Sunday, up from 6.27% 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 71,586 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 90,742 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 5,845 residents were reported

Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.24%. That’s down from 6.55% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 9,608 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.35%. That’s up from 7.21% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 17,281 residents were reported Sunday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.05%. That’s up from 5.82% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report showsatotalof33,178Floridianshave died from COVID-19. In addition, 641 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. 23 for deaths per 100,000 residents and No.18forcasesper100,000residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Sunday, there were 2,863 people hospitalized in Florida with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

InSouthFlorida,BrowardCounty reported 425, Palm Beach County had 200 and Miami-Dade had 535.

Vaccines

In Florida, 2,528,950 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 11.77% of the population.

So far, 3,075,333 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That representsabout14.32%ofthepopulation.