State reports 5,571 new cases and 83 more deaths
As COVID vaccines roll out in the state, about 38% of Floridians have received at least one dose. Yet, the number of new cases per day isn’t changing much.
Florida reported 5,571 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday and another 83 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,184,354 cases since the pandemic began.
In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 6,095 on Wednesday, a big jump from the seven-day average of 4,506 only a month ago.
South Florida
South Florida counties reported 2,166 new cases Wednesday. July 2020 was the worst month for cases in South Florida.
Palm Beach County: 367 additional cases and 7 more deaths. The county now has 139,846 confirmed cases and 2,784 deaths, including 52 non-residents.
Broward County: 671 additional cases and 21 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 230,312 cases and 2,860 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 47 non-residents.
Miami-Dade County: 1,128 additional cases and 1 new deaths. The county now has 474,069 confirmed cases and 6,103 deaths, including 44 non-residents.
Testing and 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 positivity rate dipped slightly on Wednesday.
The state reported a daily positivity rate of 6.26% on Wednesday, down from 6.89% 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 88,833 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 82,264 results reported the day before.
The positivity rate dipped slightly in all three South Florida counties on Wednesday.
Palm Beach County: Test results for 6,505 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.56%. That’s down from 6.86% the previous day.
Broward County: Test results for 11,703 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.78%. That’s down from 5.84% the previous day.
Miami-Dade County: Test results for 17,720 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.50%. That’s down from 6.79% the previous day.
Deaths
The numbers of COVID deaths in South Florida have declined, although the daily count reflects a lag in reporting.
The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 34,616 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 678 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Wednesday 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 Wednesday, there were 3,455 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 519, Palm Beach County had 223 and Miami-Dade had 619.
Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide.
Vaccines
More than 8.1 million people in Florida have received one or more doses of a COVID vaccine.
In Florida, 2,943,621 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 13.71% of the population.
So far, 5,199,978 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 24.21% of the population.