Florida COVID update: 23,930 cases, 968 deaths and fewer people in hospital and ICU
Florida on Monday reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 23,930 more COVID-19 cases and 968 deaths, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.
Case and death data was not reported Sunday by the CDC, so what was reported Monday includes two days’ worth of data. In this most recent phase of the pandemic, Florida through the CDC has reported deaths in Monday and Thursday clumps.
All but 88 of the newly reported deaths — about 91% — occurred since Aug. 16, according to the Herald analysis. About 57% of the newly reported died in the past two weeks, the analysis showed. The majority of deaths happened during Florida’s latest surge in COVID-19 cases, fueled by the Delta variant.
In all, Florida has recorded at least 3,442,090 confirmed COVID cases and 49,251 deaths.
In the past seven days, on average, the state has added 325 deaths and 12,465 cases to the daily cumulative total, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREThe Herald publishes the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after each update by the agency.
On Aug. 10, the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported new cases and deaths to the CDC. 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 number of cases back-filling over time.
The Herald will continue to report the difference in total cases and deaths from one day to the next in stories about daily new cases and deaths, as this is consistent with the way data have been presented in daily stories since the beginning of the pandemic.
More information
The Herald is calculating new cases using the difference between cumulative total of cases and the total from the previous day, as pulled daily from the CDC trends data. New deaths are calculated the same way.
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 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.
FLORIDA VACCINATIONS
About 11,845,110 eligible Floridians — 55.2% of the state’s population — have completed the two-dose series of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, according to the CDC.
VACCINATIONS IN SOUTH FLORIDA AND MANATEE COUNTY
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 1,892,448 people, or 69.7% of the county’s total population, are fully vaccinated.
▪ In Broward County about 1,145,612 people are fully vaccinated, or 58.7% of the county’s population.
▪ In Palm Beach County, about 838,643 people are fully vaccinated, or 56% of the county’s population.
▪ In Monroe County about 48,340 people are fully vaccinated, or 65.1% of the county’s population.
▪ In Manatee County about 207,018 people are fully vaccinated, or 51.3% of the county’s population.
COVID HOSPITALIZATIONS IN FLORIDA
According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Monday report, there were 11,547 COVID-19 patients reported from 257 Florida hospitals.
That’s 154 fewer patients than Sunday’s report from 259 hospitals. In Monday’s report, COVID-19 patients take up 20.01% of all inpatient hospital beds compared to 20.06% in the previous day’s reporting hospitals.
Of the people hospitalized in Florida, 2,796 people were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of 32 from the previous day’s report. That represents 42.51% of the ICU hospital beds at the 257 hospitals reporting data, compared to 43.22% the previous day.
What’s not clear is if these continued decreases are because this COVID-19 wave is ebbing or because some of the people in the recent hospitalization spike are now part of the death toll reported over the past two weeks.
Monday’s Miami-Dade report says hospitals had 930 COVID-19 patients on Sunday, nine more than the previous day’s report. There were 48 patients discharged and 46 new COVID patients, the fewest new patients in weeks. Of the 46 new patients, 43 of them (93.5%) aren’t fully vaccinated.
Intensive care unit patients moved a half step, up two to 265.
Broward County’s Monday report said there were 935 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals, a decrease of six from Sunday’s patient population.
Miami Herald staff writer Carli Teproff contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Florida COVID update: 23,930 cases, 968 deaths and fewer people in hospital and ICU."
