Florida reports 7,104 new COVID-19 cases. Miami-Dade also sees a decrease in new cases
The state of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard update reported 7,104 new cases Sunday and Miami-Dade reported 1,483 new cases — the fewest on a Sunday for each since June 21.
That day, the state reported a then-Sunday high 3,494 new cases. and Miami-Dade reported 710.
Miami-Dade’s Sunday case count also represented a giant drop for a county that reported over 2,000 cases each of the previous 14 days and over 3,000 on four of those days. Also, the average daily positive test rates decreased in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
The state also added 62 deaths. Florida’s novel coronavirus totals, residents and non-residents, are 487,132 cases and 7,206 deaths.
Though the state-run testing facilities have been closed since Thursday with the coming of Tropical Storm Isaias, the turnaround time in results means that won’t affect the daily case count for several days.
Differences in data collection and entry usually cause Sunday case counts to diverge from trends set during the rest of the week. Usually, that difference results in a lower case count, although there have been exceptions, most notably the 15,300 new cases reported on July 12.
South Florida counties
▪ Miami-Dade: Along with the 1,483 cases mentioned above, Miami-Dade reported 22 deaths. The state-high pandemic totals are 122,690 and 1,669, respectively.
Miami-Dade’s average daily positive test rate also dropped significantly, 19.3% from July 19 through 25 to 16.6 percent July 26 through Saturday. The 14-day test rate, according to Miami-Dade’s New Normal Dashboard, is down to 18.0%.
▪ Broward: Broward didn’t experience as great a drop from trend as Miami-Dade, but 1,178 new cases was a reduction from the norm of the last two weeks. The county also reported three deaths. As for the trend in positive tests, Broward’s average daily positive test rate was 14.3% last week and 12.3% this week.
Broward now has had 57,975 COVID-19 cases and 745 deaths from COVID-19.
▪ Palm Beach: There were another 372 cases and no deaths in Palm Beach, which has had 33,854 cases and 833 deaths. The average daily positive test rate fell from 11.2% last week to to 9.2% over the last seven days.
▪ Monroe: The county of the Keys saw 32 more cases and two more deaths, putting its pandemic totals at 1,357 and 11, respectively.
Current Hospitalizations
Tracking current hospitalizations gives an idea of how hard COVID-19 is hitting a region.
As of Sunday morning, the state reported 8,079 people hospitalized primarily because of COVID-19, a tiny rise of seven people. Miami-Dade rose 40 to 1,794; another 29 people moved Broward up to 1,193; Palm Beach increased by 16 to 512; and Monroe stayed the same, 11.
Miami-Dade’s count of its current hospitalizations is at 1,916 after the sixth consecutive day with a decrease.
Jennifer Moon, deputy mayor of Miami-Dade, previously told the Miami Herald that there may be a number of reasons why the county’s hospitalization data differs from the state’s: frequency of daily updates; human error; and whether the state’s agency is including in its data the patients who visited the emergency room for other urgent medical needs and tested positive for COVID after they are admitted.
Testing
There have been 3,726,562 people tested in Florida. The positive test rate rose over the past week to 13.07%.
This story was originally published August 2, 2020 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Florida reports 7,104 new COVID-19 cases. Miami-Dade also sees a decrease in new cases."
