Florida confirmed coronavirus cases now over 31,500 — South Florida death toll at 629
Another 689 reported confirmed COVID-19 cases put Florida’s total at 31,528 as of Sunday morning and South Florida accounted for 14 of the 19 newly reported deaths.
The Sunday morning update includes cases and deaths that would’ve been in the Saturday evening update, but the state cut back to once-a-day updates Saturday. As expected, Sunday’s increases, 689 cases and 19 deaths, were much greater than the corresponding numbers Saturday. Still, seven of the last eight days, the confirmed case count has been under 1,000.
State and South Florida county breakdown:
▪ Florida officially has 31,528 cases, among which are 1,074 deaths and 4,957 hospitalizations. Of 346,365 tests administered, 9.1% have come back positive.
▪ After another 346 confirmed cases and six deaths, Miami-Dade remains the state’s leader in each, 11,351 and 301, respectively. That’s 36.0% of the cases and 28.0% of the deaths. Of Miami-Dade’s cases, 1,291 required hospitalization. The positive test rate on Miami-Dade’s 76,785 tests given is 14.8%, down slightly from 14.9%.
▪ Broward’s case count is 4,729 after another 70 cases and death toll at 170 after another eight deaths. Those cases include 890 hospitalizations. Broward’s positive test rate remained at a rounded 11.0% (11.04% to 10.97%).
▪ Palm Beach suffered no more deaths, but did add 83 confirmed cases, leaving it at 155 deaths among 2,697 cases. The hospitalization count is 409. The positive test rate decreased from 11.5% to 11.1%.
▪ One more Monroe County case put the county at 78. There have been three deaths and 11 hospitalizations. Only 6.8% of Monroe’s 1,152 tests have come back positive.
The state’s official numbers have drawn skepticism from researchers and health experts. Among the former, a University of Miami group extrapolated from a study of 1,400 people that about 165,000 Miami-Dade residents or 6% of the population, have antibodies indicating a past novel coronavirus infection.
Health experts point to the delay, sometimes upwards of two weeks, in the state getting and reporting results from private testing labs, which were completing the vast majority of tests.
This story was originally published April 26, 2020 at 11:52 AM.
