Florida reports nearly 200 new COVID-19 deaths and almost 2,000 new cases
Florida’s Department of Health on Wednesday confirmed 1,948 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s known total to 706,516. Also, 172 Florida resident deaths were announced, bringing the resident death toll to 14,315.
One new non-resident death was also announced, bringing the non-resident toll to 171 for the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to Florida’s COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard.
The Department of Health told the Miami Herald there was a discrepancy in the number for resident deaths between the state coronavirus report and the state’s dashboard, which incorrectly showed two more resident deaths statewide and wrong death tolls for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Florida
▪ Miami-Dade County reported 314 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 36 new deaths, according to Florida’s Department of Health. The county now has 170,400 confirmed cases and 3,279 deaths.
The single-day jump in the county’s positivity rate to 6.78%, reported Tuesday, wasn’t repeated Wednesday (4.8%), but the average daily positive test rate over the last seven days was higher than that of the previous seven days, 4.6% to 4.3%.
▪ Broward County reported 98 additional confirmed cases of the disease and 12 new deaths. The county has a known total of 77,220 cases and 1,396 deaths. The county’s average daily positive test rate continued to drop, 2.8% for the last seven days from 3.2% for the previous seven days.
▪ Palm Beach County saw 67 additional confirmed cases and 18 new deaths. The county now has 46,552 confirmed cases and 1,368 deaths. Palm Beach’s average daily test rate plummeted, from 4.4% to 3.1%.
▪ Monroe County confirmed two additional cases and no new deaths. The county has a known total of 1,847 cases and 22 deaths.
Current hospitalizations
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reports the number of patients hospitalized statewide with a “primary diagnosis of COVID.” The data, which is updated at least every hour, does not distinguish between the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital intensive care units and those in acute-care beds, which require less attention from nurses.
As of 1:31 p.m. Wednesday, the AHCA reported 2,085 current hospitalizations around the state, a decrease of 89 from Tuesday night. The number of cases fell in most South Florida counties. Miami-Dade was down two to 269, Broward was down 13 to 186 and Palm Beach was down three to 111.
The exception was Monroe County, which increased from four to five hospitalizations.
Florida’s current hospitalization data does not always match the hospitalization data reported in Miami-Dade’s “New Normal” dashboard. Officials say this could be for a number of reasons, including the frequency of daily updates.
Wednesday, Miami-Dade’s chart said the current hospitalizations slipped slightly to 340. COVID-19 patients in ICU beds rose from 109 to 116, which have been the low and the high for that number since last Thursday.
COVID-19 Testing in Florida
Testing in Florida has seen steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus’ progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
Epidemiologists then use the testing data to create a positivity rate. The rate helps them determine if a rise in cases is because of an increase in testing or if it means there’s increased transmission of the virus in the community.
On Wednesday, Florida’s Department of Health reported the results of 44,812 people tested on Tuesday. The positivity rate of new cases (people who tested positive for the first time) was 5.03%.
If retests are included — people who have tested positive once and are being tested for a second time — the positivity rate was 6.35% of the total, the report said.
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