State coronavirus cases push past 47,400, and half belong to South Florida
Florida’s Department of Health on Wednesday morning confirmed 527 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total of confirmed cases to 47,471. There were also 44 new deaths announced, raising the statewide toll to 2,096.
Wednesday’s daily total of newly confirmed cases is slightly higher than Tuesday’s, a reported 502 cases, the lowest number of new cases the state has seen since May 13. Tuesday also saw the highest number of new tests conducted in a single day since the novel coronavirus pandemic began, according to the state.
HOW MANY CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ARE IN SOUTH FLORIDA?
Less than half of the new cases and almost half of the new deaths were in South Florida:
▪ Miami-Dade County reported 92 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, pushing the county’s known total to hit and surpass 16,000. The county now has 16,034 confirmed cases. Eleven new deaths were also reported, raising the county’s death toll to 589, the highest in the state.
▪ Broward County reported 38 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and three new deaths. The county’s confirmed total is now at 6,407 with 285 deaths.
▪ Palm Beach County saw 77 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and seven new deaths. The county’s known total is now at 4,776 with 291 deaths.
▪ Monroe County confirmed one additional case of the disease, bringing its total number of confirmed cases to 100. The Florida Keys did not report any new deaths, keeping the count at three.
Here’s a breakdown on what you need to know:
CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES IN FLORIDA
More than half of the state’s known COVID-19 cases are in South Florida’s four counties: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe. Miami-Dade continues to lead the state with the most confirmed cases and deaths. It has 16,034 known cases and 589 deaths.
Despite the daily reports of new cases and deaths, local and state officials have previously said that decreases in the daily total of reported cases are signs that social-distancing measures are working.
Officials are also relying on hospitalization data. Unlike testing, which might be limited or take days to report results, hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time visual of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
The health department says it doesn’t “have a figure” to reflect the number of people currently hospitalized and only provides the total number of hospitalizations in its statewide and county-level data.
On Wednesday morning, 187 hospitalizations were added, raising the statewide total count to 8,681.
Scientists are also still working to learn more about the virus, including how many people in the community are actually infected with the disease and have mild or no symptoms, which can make it difficult to determine what percentage of the cases hospitalizations represent.
In Miami-Dade, hospitals are self-reporting a number of key metrics, including hospitalizations, to the county. Some provide updates every day; others don’t.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who has been posting the hospitalization data on his Twitter, announced the creation of the county’s “New Normal” dashboard earlier this week. The dashboard provides a daily data summary on a variety of areas including hospitalizations, positive testing rates, influenza-like illness, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue calls and deaths.
There was a rise in hospitalizations throughout the county that coincided with Gimenez lifting the emergency closure order on most businesses — relief he had tied to improvements in hospitalization and testing metrics.
Gimenez said during a news conference Monday in Opa-locka that the increased hospitalization rate was because the county saw an increase of residents in long-term care facilities being sent to hospitals for COVID-19 treatment.
COVID-19 TESTING IN FLORIDA
Testing in Florida has seen a steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began and has begun to see a steady decline in the percentage of people testing positive.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus’ progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
The recommended numbers of daily tests needed vary by experts, but the dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine told the governor Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.
Florida’s Department of Health reported 55,507 new tests in Wednesday’s daily COVID-19 update, the most tests recorded in a single day since the pandemic began.
In total, the state has done 772,669 tests. Of the total tested, 47,471 or 6.14 percent have tested positive for the disease. The state says 1,357 tests are still pending results.
Also on Wednesday, the Florida Department of Health said 1,702 tests taken in May were damaged in transit and those people will need to be retested. Health officials said those who had their sample damaged will be contacted and should retests at the same site.
But health experts told the Miami Herald last month they were concerned the number of pending COVID-19 tests listed by the state is an undercount because Florida reports only the number of Floridians waiting to get test results from state labs, not private ones — and private labs are completing more than 90% of state tests.
Previously, it’s taken as long as two weeks for the results of pending tests from private labs to be added into the state’s official count, making it difficult for officials to project the size and scale of the pandemic in the state.
And on Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed that a weekend spike of about 550 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Miami-Dade County was largely due to a backlog of three-week-old test results from an undisclosed testing site. He said the site was “not affiliated with the state.”
Miami Herald staff writers Ben Conarck, Douglas Hanks and Samantha J. Gross contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 20, 2020 at 11:40 AM.
