FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida – Florida’s daily COVID-19 death toll hit 277 on Friday, linking the state record for the deaths of residents and non-residents to the disease.
Florida on Friday reported 13,719 new cases of coronavirus and another 272 deaths of new residents associated with COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,627,603 cases since the pandemic began.
The death toll tied the state record set on August 11 as the disease reached its summer peak.
SOUTH FLORIDA
Palm Beach County: 811 additional cases and 17 more deaths. The province now has 101,019 confirmed cases and 2,113 deaths, including 30 non-residents.
Broward County: 1176 additional cases and seven more deaths. Broward has a known total of 163,896 cases and 2,046 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The death toll includes 35 non-residents.
Miami-Dade County: 2,299 additional cases and 34 new deaths. The province now has 354,704 confirmed cases and 4,709 deaths, including 31 non-residents.
TESTING AND POSITIVITY
Public health experts say the virus is under control if the positive rate of the COVID-19 test is below 5%. But since October 29, Florida has exceeded 5% in its widely published calculation to determine the rate for testing residents.
The state reported a daily positivity rate of 12.37% on Friday, up from 8.54% the previous day. This method of calculating positivity not only counts new infections, but also counts repeated negative tests, which causes the figure to skew downwards.
According to the state, the new reported numbers reflect the results of 108,592 COVID-19 tests that Florida residents received from labs the past day, down from 148,507 results reported the previous day.
Palm Beach County: Test results for 7,189 residents were reported Friday, resulting in a daily positivity rate of 10.92%. This is higher than 7.29% the previous day.
Broward County: Test results for 8,741 residents were reported Friday, resulting in a daily positivity rate of 13.52%. This is higher than 7.14% the previous day.
Miami-Dade County: Test results for 20,909 residents were reported Friday, resulting in a daily positivity rate of 10.83%. This is higher than 7.62% the previous day.
DEATHS
The state’s pandemic data report shows that a total of 25,011 Floridians died from COVID-19. In addition, 394 non-residents died after contracting the virus. Most of the deaths reported on Friday occurred over a few weeks, but have only been confirmed in the past day.
According to the latest data from the Department of Health and the COVID detection project, there are already 24 states and the District of Columbia, Florida at number 24 for deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
HOSPITALIZATIONS
According to the state agency for health care administration, 6904 people with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19 were hospitalized in Florida on Friday.
In South Florida, Broward County reported 631, Palm Beach County had 448 and Miami-Dade 984.
Hospitalizations peaked at about 9,500 patients across the country at the end of July and then dropped on October 19 to 2011. The numbers gradually increased during November and December.
Explore the map of current hospital capacity in Florida.
VACCINES
In Florida, 1110,459 people received their first dose of vaccine, or about 5.17% of the population.
To date, 139,345 people have completed the range of doses required to vaccinate. It represents about 0.65% of the population.