State adds 5,885 new cases; 42 more deaths

Florida reported 5,885 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday and another 42 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 2,096,747 cases since the pandemic began.

In early January, the seven-day average for new cases had climbed as high as 17,991. It was 5,573 on Wednesday.

South Florida

South Florida counties reported 2,380 new cases Wednesday. July 2020 was the worst month for new cases in South Florida.

Palm Beach County: 501 additional cases and 3 more deaths. The county now has 134,337 confirmed cases and 2,731 deaths, including 52 non-residents.

Broward County: 819 additional cases and 3 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 219,792 cases and 2,755 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 46 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,060 additional cases and 6 new deaths. The county now has 454,405 confirmed cases and 5,972 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 positivity rate is now inching closer to 7%.

The state reported a daily positivity rate of 6.95% on Wednesday, up 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, newly reported case numbers reflect the results of 83,246 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, up from 79,282 results reported the day before.

The positivity rate has been rising in South Florida counties, particularly in Broward County where it had been more than 8%.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 7,164 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.85%. That’s up from 6.33% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 11,119 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.22%. That’s down from 8.06% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 15,166 residents were reported Wednesday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.98%. That’s down from 6.98% the previous day.

Deaths

The numbers of hospitalized COVID patients and deaths in South Florida have declined. After a few weeks of more than 150 new deaths per day in February, the number of new deaths per day has been less than 100 thus far in April.

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 33,822 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 654 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 3,039 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 447, Palm Beach County had 188 and Miami-Dade had 514 people hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide.

Vaccines

More than 6.6 million people in Florida have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine as of Wednesday.

In Florida, 2,667,663 people have received only their first dose of the vaccine, or about 12.42% of the population.

So far, 3,769,667 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 17.55% of the population.