Florida COVID update: Cases nearing September highs as 8,785 added, figures not seen in months
Florida reported 8,785 COVID-19 cases and one new death on Thursday, according to Friday’s report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.
That’s the most cases for a single-day report since 10,073 on Sept. 22, when Florida was on the tail end of the surging delta variant. Other days that were higher since then used combined reports from multiple days.
Earlier this fall, daily new cases reached over 15,000, so the current case levels have a way to go before reaching Delta’s record-breaking days, according to Herald calculations.
In all, Florida has recorded at least 3,739,439 confirmed COVID cases and 62,192 deaths.
In the past seven days, the state has added 26 deaths and 4,116 cases per day on average, according to Herald calculations of CDC data.
FLORIDA COVID VACCINE RATES
About 13,472,644 eligible Floridians — 62.7% of the state’s population — have completed the two-dose series of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
VACCINATIONS IN SOUTH FLORIDA AND MANATEE COUNTY
Here’s how many people have been fully vaccinated in South Florida and Manatee County, according to the CDC.
▪ In Miami-Dade County, about 2,162,881 people, or 79.6% of the county’s total population, are fully vaccinated.
▪ In Broward County, about 1,307,343 people are fully vaccinated, or 66.9% of the county’s population.
▪ In Palm Beach County, about 939,308 people are fully vaccinated, or 62.8% of the county’s population.
▪ In Monroe County, about 54,909 people are fully vaccinated, or 74% of the county’s population.
▪ In Manatee County, about 235,745 people are fully vaccinated, or 58.5% of the county’s population.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida
There were 1,514 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Friday report. This data is reported from 257 Florida hospitals. That is 42 fewer people than in Thursday’s report, when 256 hospitals reported.
COVID-19 patients take up 2.60% of all in-patient beds in the latest report’s hospitals, compared to 2.7% in the previous day’s reporting hospitals.
Of the people hospitalized in Florida, 281 were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of nine. That represents about 4.49% of the state’s ICU hospital beds, compared to 4.7% the previous day.
Friday’s Miami-Dade County report said there were 147 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals on Thursday. Of the 31 new COVID patients, 23 (74.19%) had not been vaccinated.
On Thursday, as the omicron virus has begun to spread rapidly, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava reinstated the county’s July emergency order to require hospitals across the county to report daily bed inventories and COVID patient counts.
Broward County’s Friday report said there were 140 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals, a decrease of five from the previous day’s report.
This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 1:37 PM.
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