COVID information shifting to weekly trends. What to know about finding the report
The Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald are starting a new weekly report on COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations. The report, to be posted Tuesday afternoons beginning March 1, will include trends on statewide and South Florida cases, deaths, hospitalizations and vaccinations.
The move from a daily to a weekly report comes after Herald analysis of declining COVID trends and feedback from readers. New Florida resident cases have consistently declined since January at the peak of the surge, as well as hospitalizations. The Herald will continue to post daily COVID news as warranted, in addition to deeper stories on trends and public service articles on mandates, vaccines and testing.
The weekly report will continue to be based on data published by the CDC, the Florida Department of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Weekly analysis offers a more accurate way to see whether key COVID indicators are falling or rising, such as cases and deaths. Daily stories have become less meaningful as Florida changed the way it reports cases and deaths, causing certain days of the week to see large increases.
Decreasing number of new COVID cases
Mary Jo Trepka, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at Florida International University, says the state has seen a marked decline in cases and testing from record-breaking highs at the end of December and the beginning of January caused by the omicron variant.
“We’re clearly decreasing; everything is going in the direction right now,” she said.”There is not much change day to day anymore as things continue to go down.”
Florida has returned to the low levels of new cases seen last fall. After the peak of the delta wave last summer, the state saw record low new weekly cases in October and November.
Newly weekly cases dipped below 10,000 in late November, according to Herald calculations of the Florida Department of Health’s weekly reports. Since the state transitioned to weekly reports, new cases had never dropped that low.
With omicron’s peak in the rear-view mirror, new weekly cases have steadily declined since early January, according to state data analyzed by the Miami Herald data. So far, new weekly cases went from around 429,000 reported the second week of January to just around 25,000 reported this past week.
Trepka says we can expect the decline to continue because we haven’t reached our lowest levels on record.
“I think we are going to keep going down,” she said.
As for hospitalizations, HHS data shows a steady decline of patients hospitalized for COVID-19. During omicron’s peak there were more than 11,000 patients in hospital beds for COVID. As of Saturday, that number has dropped to about 3,000.
Trepka warns that we are still seeing a lag in deaths that occurred in the recent omicron surge.
“All the deaths for omicron haven’t been reported yet, due to the delay and need for certification, but maybe into March we may have a good idea how many people have died,” she said.
Apart from data indicating the decline, surveys of Herald readers have shown a desire for deeper analysis and a focus on trends. Weekly analysis offers a more accurate way to see whether key COVID indicators are falling or rising, such as with cases and deaths.
Daily news when it happens
Herald staff will still monitor daily figures for significant changes in state or federal data. For example, in August, the Herald found that at the time Florida Department of Health reports showed ‘artificially’ few deaths.
And Trepka says with the virus still spreading, a new variant could potentially result in another surge.
“The virus is still circulating and it can potentially come back if we get another variant in our community,” she said. “So it is still very important that people get fully vaccinated and boosted, as a majority of people haven’t been boosted and need to.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 12:30 PM.
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