Coronavirus cases in Florida jump by 1,200 and now total more than 48,600
Florida’s Department of Health on Thursday morning confirmed 1,204 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total of known cases to hit and surpass 48,000. The state now has a total of 48,675 confirmed cases.
There were also 48 new deaths announced, raising the statewide death toll to 2,144.
Thursday’s daily total of newly confirmed cases is the highest the state has seen since April 17, when the state was still providing updates twice a day and reported 1,413 additional cases.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Twitter that Thursday’s spike in cases is because the state “received another big dump” of “more than 50,000” test results.
HOW MANY CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ARE IN SOUTH FLORIDA?
More than half of the new cases and new deaths were in South Florida:
▪ Miami-Dade County reported 333 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 13 new deaths. The county’s confirmed total is now at 16,367 with 602 deaths, the highest in the state.
▪ Broward County reported 107 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one new death. The county’s confirmed total is now at 6,514 with 286 deaths.
▪ Palm Beach County saw 192 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 17 new deaths. The county’s known total is now at 4,968 with 308 deaths.
▪ Monroe County did not confirm any additional cases of the disease and no new deaths. The Florida Keys death toll remains 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 16,367 known cases and 602 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 Thursday morning, 265 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.
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.
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 retake the test at the same site.
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. Thursday’s testing data was not immediately available.
Florida’s testing total does not match a nationwide analysis of COVID-19 data released this week, which shows a broad discrepancy between what some states are reporting and what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national dashboard is showing.
The total number of tests reported by Florida’s Department of Health is lower than what the federal government is reporting for the state, according to The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, which is considered a primary national database for tracking COVID-19 data across the nation.
The large discrepancy was caused by the CDC’s decision to include antibody tests along with active COVID-19 tests in its count, according to Miami Herald news partner WLRN.
“It’s apples to oranges. The two tests measure two different things,” Mary Jo Trepka, an epidemiologist professor at Florida International University, told WLRN. “It’s more informative to look at the numbers of those two tests separately.”
As of Wednesday, there are 1,357 tests still pending results, according to Florida’s health department.
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.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 12:16 PM.
