Florida reports 137 new COVID-19 deaths, highest number this year

Lois K. Solomon, South Florida Sun Sentinel
·3 min read

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida reported 8,002 new coronavirus cases on Monday and another 137 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,579,281 cases since the pandemic began.

The new figures mark the lowest number of new cases this year but the highest number of deaths.

SOUTH FLORIDA

Palm Beach County: 525 additional cases and 1 more deaths. The county now has 98,067 confirmed cases and 2,067 deaths, including 30 non-residents.

Broward County: 908 additional cases and 14 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 159,670 cases and 2,018 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 35 non-residents.

Miami-Dade County: 1,844 additional cases and 22 new deaths. The county now has 346,090 confirmed cases and 4,646 deaths, including 29 non-residents.

TESTING AND POSITIVITY

Public health experts say the virus is considered under control when the COVID-19 test positivity rate is under 5%. But since Oct. 29, Florida has exceeded 5% in its widely publicized calculation for assessing the rate for testing of residents.

The state reported a daily positivity rate of 9.19% on Monday, up from 9.10% the day before. This method of calculating positivity counts new infections only, but also counts repeat negative tests, which skews the figure downward.

According to the state, the new reported case numbers reflect the results of 85,745 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 119,002 results reported the day before.

Palm Beach County: Test results for 5,812 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 8.69%. That's up from 7.94% the previous day.

Broward County: Test results for 10,028 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 9.17%. That's up from 8.34% the previous day.

Miami-Dade County: Test results for 20,324 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 9.05%. That's down from 9.28% the previous day.

DEATHS

The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 24,274 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 383 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Monday happened over several weeks but were just confirmed in the past day.

Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida ranks No. 24 for deaths per 100K residents and No. 24 for cases per 100,000 residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.

HOSPITALIZATIONS

As of Monday, there were 7,448 people hospitalized in Florida with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

In South Florida, Broward County reported 624, Palm Beach County had 426 and Miami-Dade had 1,088.

Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide, then dipped as low as 2,011 on Oct. 19. The numbers steadily increased throughout November and December.

VACCINATIONS

In Florida, 850,556 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 3.96% of the population.

So far, 87,074 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 0.41% of the population.