Florida shy of single day record, but adds nearly 9,500 new COVID-19 cases and 67 deaths
Florida’s Department of Health on Friday confirmed 9,448 additional cases of COVID-19, falling shy of Thursday’s record-breaking 10,109 single-day record. The state’s total confirmed cases hit 178,594.
For the second consecutive day, there were also 67 new deaths announced Friday, bringing the statewide death toll to 3,684. The statewide non-resident death total remains at 101.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Florida
South Florida’s Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties accounted for 4,650 of the newly confirmed cases — almost half the total in the state, with Miami-Dade jumping by 742 compared to Thursday. The Keys also added 16 more cases than it did on Thursday’s record-setting day.
▪ Miami-Dade County reported 3,046 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 16 new deaths. The county now has 43,311 confirmed cases and 1,034 deaths.
▪ Broward County reported 1,113 additional confirmed cases of the disease and 12 new deaths. The county now has 18,229 known cases and 406 deaths.
▪ Palm Beach County saw 465 additional confirmed cases and 13 new deaths. The county now has 15,324 confirmed cases.
▪ Monroe County reported 26 additional cases of the disease and no new deaths. The Florida Keys now have 322 confirmed cases and the death toll remains at five.
Here’s a breakdown on what you need to know:
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida
One of the tools that officials are relying on to determine if the coronavirus situation is improving in the state is hospitalization data. Unlike testing, which might be limited or take days to report results, hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time snapshot of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
Florida’s COVID-19 Data and Surveillance dashboard does not reflect the number of people currently hospitalized and only provides the total number of hospitalizations since the crisis began in its statewide and county-level data. That is expected to change sometime this week.
On Tuesday, the office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed to the Miami Herald that the state would start reporting current hospitalization numbers for all counties sometime this week.
The change comes following a surge of cases in recent weeks with public health experts and the nonprofit COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer group that has become the most prolific coronavirus data collector in the country, pressuring the state to start reporting current hospitalizations. That metric, they say, is a clearer way of assessing the pandemic’s severity.
On Friday, the state was still only providing total hospitalization counts — 341 hospitalizations were added (16 more than had been added on Thursday), bringing the statewide total to 15,491.
Hospitals in Miami-Dade have been self-reporting a number of key metrics, including hospitalizations, to the county, which has made this data public for several months.
On Friday, Miami-Dade hospitalizations for COVID-19 complications hit another all-time high with a total of 1,418 patients, according to Miami-Dade County’s “New Normal” dashboard data. According to Friday’s data, 157 people were discharged and 150 people were admitted.
Friday also saw, for the first time, Miami-Dade’s ICU availability moving into Red Flag territory in the county’s daily coronavirus report. COVID-19 patients are taking up more than 70 percent of available ICU beds.
On Thursday, hospitals reported a total of 1,364 patients, 144 people were discharged and 156 people were admitted.”
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Scientists are also still working to learn more about the virus, including how many people in the community are infected and have mild or no symptoms.
COVID-19 testing in Florida
Testing in Florida has seen steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began.
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 number of daily tests needed varies among experts, but the dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine has told Gov. DeSantis that Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.
On Friday, Florida’s Department of Health reported 49,262 new tests on Thursday.
To date, 2,083,056 people have been tested in Florida. Of the total tested, 178,594 (about 8.6%) have tested positive.
Miami-Dade has tested 337,328 with 42,311 positives. The percentage of 12.5% is above the 10% target range.
Palm Beach also inched past the target range for the first time and is now at 10.1% after 151,609 tests. Broward and Monroe are at 8.7% and 5.2% positive, both representing increases in a single day.
This story was originally published July 3, 2020 at 12:05 PM.
