Florida’s current hospitalizations for COVID-19 drop for the first time in two weeks

David J. Neal
·1 min read
Nurse Alix Zacharski, right, sanitizes her hands as other doctors and nurses care for a patient in the Medical Intensive Care Unit for COVID-19 patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital on July 23, 2021.

The first good news from Florida’s COVID-19 numbers in a while: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services data from Saturday released Sunday morning says the state ended two weeks of resetting the record daily for current hospitalizations.

The continuing bad news: COVID-19 patients in intensive care units kept rising and now account for over half the state’s ICU bed usage.

Florida COVID update: 25,991 new cases, state breaks another pandemic record

As for the former, after climbing up to 16,100 current hospitalizations on the 14th consecutive day of that number rising, Florida reported 15,985 COVID-19 patients. One fewer hospital reported data, so the average COVID-19 patients per hospital took a baby step back from 62.4 to 62.2.

Nationally, COVID patients account for 10.7% of all hospital patients while they’re 27.7% of all hospital patients in Florida. Florida’s COVID patients are 19.3% of all the COVID-19 patients in the United States.

In Florida’s ICU beds, COVID-19 patients increased by 51 to 3,336. That’s 50.1% of all ICU beds in the state and 16.9% of the nation’s COVID patients in intensive care units.