Florida health officials on Saturday said another 4,044 people have tested positive for COVID-19, continuing a rise in cases over the past five days.
It’s the first time the statewide number of new cases topped 4,000 since 4,311 infections were reported on Aug. 22. This does not include higher totals published by the state last Sunday and Sept. 1, due to lab or technical reporting issues.
Saturday’s total followed statewide new case totals of 3,449 on Friday, 3,356 on Thursday, 2,883 on Wednesday, 2,725 on Tuesday and 1,533 on Monday.
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Public health experts say Florida is at a delicate place in its battle with the coronavirus.
“We are trending upward in Florida,” said Dr. Marissa J. Levine, director of the University of South Florida’s Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice. “We’ve been at this relatively high level of, I’d call it a fragile stability … so we’re not necessarily in a good place, meaning that it wouldn’t take much for us to see another wave or spike in activity.”
The Florida Department of Health on Saturday also reported the deaths of 88 more people linked to COVID-19 illness. Most of these fatalities happened in recent weeks but were just confirmed in the past day.
Florida has a pandemic total of at least 752,481 cases and 16,118 deaths.
Health officials reported that 5.71 million people in Florida have been swabbed for the virus since March. About 4.95 million have tested negative.
The overall positivity rate in that time is 13.18%, state data shows.
The Department of Health said Saturday’s case numbers reflect the results of 83,567 COVID-19 tests received from labs in the past day, similar to the 84,496 results reported Friday.
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Daily positivity rate
According to two different measures of daily positivity rates, the state is above the 5% level where public health experts say the virus is under control.
Florida Department of Health: On Saturday, the state reported a 5.21% positivity rate under Florida’s way of calculating positivity based on new infections only. Saturday’s rate is higher than the previous day, when it stood at 4.36%.
Johns Hopkins University: Unlike state data, Johns Hopkins University doesn’t exclude repeated results for the same individual. On Saturday, John Hopkins reported Florida’s positivity rate to be 11.4% based on Friday’s test results, which is lower than the 11.9% reported the day before.
South Florida
Broward County: 377 additional confirmed coronavirus cases and six more deaths. The county has a known total of 80,820 cases and 1,535 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. In total, 7,999 county residents were tested on Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 4.86% for people with new infections only. That’s up from 3.82% the previous day.
Palm Beach County: 196 additional cases of COVID-19 and nine more deaths. The county now has 48,870 confirmed cases and 1,510 deaths. In total, 5,373 county residents were tested on Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 3.82% for people with new infections only. That’s up from 3.33% the previous day.
Miami-Dade County: 554 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 17 more deaths. The county now has 177,893 confirmed cases and 3,558 deaths. In total, 11,425 county residents were tested on Friday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 4.76% for people with new infections only. That’s up from 4.13% the previous day.
Hospitalizations
As of noon Saturday, 2,046 people across the state were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, slightly lower than the 2,100 hospitalized at the same time on Friday.
South Florida’s numbers were almost identical to the previous day. Broward County reported 178 patients hospitalized; Palm Beach County had 98 and Miami-Dade had the most in the state with 270 people hospitalized.
The online report from the state Agency for Health Care Administration updates several times throughout the day. Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients.
Since the pandemic began, a total of 46,976 residents have been hospitalized for the disease in Florida, according to a separate report by the state health department.
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Deaths
Statewide: Saturday’s report shows a total of 15,917 Florida resident deaths. In addition, 201 non-resident deaths have been attributed to the virus in the state.
Florida’s COVID-19 death rate since the pandemic began is ninth among states, tied with Illinois, at 73 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s higher than the national rate of 65 deaths per 100,000.
Long-term care facilities: At least 6,455 deaths have occurred among residents and staff at nursing homes and assisted-living centers throughout Florida. That’s 54 additional deaths from Friday’s report.
Miami-Dade County has had the highest number of deaths at long-term care facilities, with 834 and Palm Beach County was second with 671. Broward has had 435 deaths.
National and global view
U.S.: At least 8 million people in the country have been infected with the novel coronavirus and 218,766 are known to have died as of 11:30 a.m. Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
World: At least 39.4 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 and 1,106,221 people have died from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins. The U.S. has had the most COVID-19 cases and deaths of any country. The U.S. has 4.3% of the world’s population, but 20.4% of the world’s cases and 19.8% of the world’s deaths.
Marc Freeman can be reached at mjfreeman@sunsentinel.com and on Twitter @marcjfreeman.
