Florida COVID update: 799 deaths are added to tally over the past month
Florida on Thursday reported 15,586 more COVID-19 cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with 799 deaths over the span of the pandemic, all but one of which occurred in the past month, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.
The one-day jump in the number of reported cases and deaths comes amid a change in the way deaths and cases are counted. The change was implemented by the CDC last week, resulting in occasional one-day aberrations like the 799 deaths reported on Thursday.
The inclusion of the previously uncounted deaths is part of Florida’s ongoing latest wave. It is the largest single-day increase in the tally in Florida COVID pandemic history.
In all, Florida has recorded at least 2,994,019 confirmed COVID cases statewide and 41,937 deaths.
On Aug. 10, the CDC changed the way it reported new cases and deaths in Florida. Cases and deaths used to be logged as total new cases reported on a single day. Now, Florida is reporting cases by the “case date,” according to the CDC rather than the date the case was logged into the system. The result of this change is a lag in cases by date and a significant number of cases backfilling over time.
The Herald will continue to report numbers based on the difference in total cases from one day to the next, as this is consistent with the way data have been presented in daily stories since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Herald will report deaths the same way, after pulling the raw data from the CDC website.
As a result, the “new cases” and “new deaths” listed on the CDC site for any given day may be different than numbers published by the Herald for the same day.
According to a statement from CDC spokesperson Jasmine Reed on Aug. 18: “Florida’s aggregate case and death data includes case date for cases and date of death for deaths. The method applies to data shared by Florida and to data displayed on COVID Data Tracker. Other States also use this reporting method and states can vary in the reporting method. For example, data as of the date that states submit may be the date that a state received its data from its reporting entities, or it might be another dating method that the state prefers.”
DOH spokesperson Weesam Khoury said Florida’s new reporting system “will ensure that continuous epidemiological analyses provide the most updated data to the public.” Neither agency provided further explanation of how a “case date” is assigned to each new case.
COVID-19 vaccine rates in Florida
As of the Thursday report, 10,926,175 eligible Floridians — 50.9% of the state’s population — had completed the two-dose series of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, according to the CDC.
COVID-19 VACCINES IN SOUTH FLORIDA
The CDC reports that every county’s level of community transmission is high. Here’s how many people have been fully vaccinated in South Florida, according to the CDC.
▪ In Miami-Dade County about 1,743,306 people, or 64.2% of the county’s total population, are fully vaccinated.
▪ In Broward County about 1,055,124 people are fully vaccinated, or 54% of the county’s population.
▪ In Palm Beach County about 781,770 people are fully vaccinated, or 52.2% of the county’s population.
▪ In Monroe County about 45,137 people are fully vaccinated, or 60.8% of the county’s population.
▪ In Manatee County about 193,086 people are fully vaccinated, or 47.9% of the county’s population.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida
There were 17,295 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida on Thursday — breaking the state’s current hospitalization record, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services from 259 Florida hospitals. This is 199 more patients than yesterday’s COVID patient population.
COVID-19 patients also accounted for 29.35% of all hospital patients.
Of the hospitalized in Florida, 3,606 people were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of four from yesterday’s report. That represents 54.16% of the state’s ICU hospital beds from 259 hospitals reporting data.
Thursday’s Miami-Dade County report said there were 1,888 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals on Wednesday, a rise of 83 from the previous day’s report. Of the 214 new COVID patients, 185 (86.4%) had not been vaccinated.
Broward County’s Thursday report said there were 1,762 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals, an increase of 14 from the previous day’s report.
Editor’s note: The CDC has removed 11 Florida deaths previously tallied as COVID-related from March 2020. As a result, starting today the Herald is reducing the number of deaths from its previously reported statewide total by that amount.
El Nuevo Herald reporter Ana Claudia Chacin contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 6:22 PM.
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