Another 740 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida, most from outside of South Florida
The daily number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported by the state of Florida hasn’t slowed, according to Sunday’s update. But South Florida’s portion did for the second day in a row.
For the second consecutive day, less than half the state’s new confirmed novel coronavirus cases came from Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, the pandemic’s epicenter in Florida. South Florida, combined, had 301 of the state’s 740 new cases. Florida now has 50,867 known confirmed cases with 2,237 deaths.
The state reported only four new deaths Sunday, two of which were in Miami-Dade.
County breakdown
▪ Miami-Dade now has had 16,885 cases and 631 deaths after adding 189 and two, respectively. Hospitalizations rose by 11 to 2,750.
▪ Broward, as happened last Sunday, had relatively few new cases (48, to 6,697) but more significant jump in hospitalizations (21). The county’s death toll remained at 292.
▪ Palm Beach added 61 cases (5,201), eight hospitalizations (1,076) and zero deaths (315).
▪ Monroe added one case, its 108th, but nothing to 13 hospitalizations and three deaths.
Testing
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 that Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.
Florida rarely reaches that mark in the tests reported. Sunday’s reported tests, 14,804, were short of even half the recommended daily amount.
This story was originally published May 24, 2020 at 12:22 PM with the headline "Another 740 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida, most from outside of South Florida."
