5,922 new coronavirus cases, 146 new resident deaths

As vaccines continue to roll out in the state, Florida continued the downward trend of new COVID cases.

Florida reported 5,922 new coronavirus cases on Friday and another 146 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,898,223 cases since the pandemic began.

The seven-day average for new cases has been declining since January 8 when it hit 17,991. This week it has been near 6,000 per day.

South Florida

South Florida reported 2,469 new cases on Friday.

Palm Beach County: 538 additional cases and 11 more deaths. The county now has 119,911 confirmed cases and 2,498 deaths, including 44 non-residents.

Broward County: 822 additional cases and 4 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 193,560 cases and 2,409 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 40 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,109 additional cases and 27 new deaths. The county now has 408,096 confirmed cases and 5,431 deaths, including 35 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 5.18% on Friday, down from 5.23% 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, newly reported case numbers reflect the results of 114,705 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 125,822 results reported the day before.

In South Florida, the positivity rate has dropped below 6% in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 9,469 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.64%. That’s up from 5.51% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 12,617 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.55%. That’s up from 5.84% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 21,599 residents were reported Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.36%. That’s down from 5.70% the previous day.

Deaths

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 30,624 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 538 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Friday 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. 25 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 22 for cases per 100K residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations

As of Friday, there were 3,863 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 569, Palm Beach County had 284 and Miami-Dade had 595.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide, then dipped as low as 2,011 on Oct. 19. Hospitalizations rose again in January but have been decreasing throughout February.

Vaccines

In Florida, 1,298,556 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 6.05% of the population.

So far, 1,539,770 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 7.17% of the population.