Is Florida’s latest COVID-19 wave over? State records 7,000 fewer cases than the week before
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A slight decline in Florida’s coronavirus caseload gave way this week to a four-figure drop in new infections even as the state logged more COVID-19 deaths than anywhere else in the U.S. since June 1.
Health officials documented 67,807 new COVID infections in the past week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday, about 7,000 fewer new cases than last week.
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It’s a big sign that the latest COVID wave, driven by mutations of the coronavirus’ omicron strain, may be crashing. The airborne pathogen has caused more than 6.5 million infections statewide since the start of the pandemic.
Florida has logged more COVID deaths since June 1 than any other state, CDC data shows. Health officials documented 1,271 deaths, followed by California, the nation’s most populous state, at 1,076.
Florida is a retirement haven, with an average resident older than people from other states. COVID is especially deadly to the elderly, who account for most of its fatalities. At the same time, Gov. Ron DeSantis has discouraged vaccinations, banned inoculation requirements in businesses and governments and fought the Biden administration’s immunization mandates for medical staff, including nursing home workers.
Florida’s CDC-reported death toll climbed by 302 people since the state Health Department’s last biweekly COVID report published July 1.
That’s slightly lower than the 398 a week on average recorded during the two weeks ending July 1. Victims can take weeks to be entered into official statistics after dying.
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COVID has killed at least 76,193 Floridians since the start of the pandemic. But that excludes more than 3,000 victims who died in 2020 from March to October, state auditors found.
The majority of Florida’s known fatalities occurred after vaccines had become freely and widely available statewide. Most who succumbed were unvaccinated, and many shunned the shots while praising Republican figures such as DeSantis.
While statewide cases and deaths are declining, other viral metrics paint a muddier picture.
Hospitalizations rise in Florida
The number of COVID-positive patients in hospitals across Florida rose by 353 this past week, data reported Friday by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department show. That’s the highest seven-day increase since June 17.
Medical staff statewide tended to 3,797 COVID-positive patients, HHS said Friday.
Coronavirus levels in sewage have been flat or rising across Florida in the past two weeks.
Viral concentrations spiked in Hillsborough County — home to Tampa — from 809 molecular fragments per milliliter of wastewater on June 22 to 1,244 per millilter Wednesday, according to sewage samples tested by Boston-based laboratory Biobot Analytics.
Genetic fragments are also on the rise in sewage from Orange County, home to Orlando. Levels have barely changed in Pinellas, Seminole and Palm Beach counties. Concentrations are down slightly in Miami-Dade County.
The CDC estimates 17.2 million COVID shots have been jabbed into Florida residents’ arms, more than 1.3 million higher than what state health officials calculated in their report July 1. The CDC counts federal personnel and others in Florida while state health officials don’t.
The CDC’s vaccination tally includes more than 6 million people who have gotten boosters. By the federal agency’s estimation, 80% of Floridians have gotten at least one shot, while 28% are boosted.
Chris Persaud is The Palm Beach Post's data reporter. Email him at cpersaud@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New COVID-19 cases in Florida drop, despite BA.5 subvariant
