Ryan Nicol
South Florida’s tri-county area recorded 44 new COVID-19 deaths Thursday, putting the area above 11,000 total deaths since the pandemic began.
Thursday’s COVID-19 report from the Department of Health showed the highest daily death toll for the region in more than two weeks. Those reports only note when those deaths were registered, not necessarily when they occurred.
Despite the weeks-high total Thursday, deaths are still down week-to-week in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
The massive overall death toll — now at 11,007 across those three counties — shows the devastating impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. But the last few weeks have shown good news with deaths trending downward and the vaccine effort continuing to hit new milestones.
Miami-Dade County — Florida’s most populous county — has now fully vaccinated more than half of its senior population. Miami-Dade can now join its neighbors in Broward (53%) and Palm Beach (55%) in having inoculated more than half of those aged 65 and over.
Across all three counties, more than 850,000 people are fully vaccinated as of Thursday. Those benchmarks come as the state is starting to significantly open up vaccine appointments. After dropping the minimum age to 50 recently, the state is lowering the minimum age to 40 starting Monday. By April 5, all individuals 18 and older will qualify.
More than 2.33 million doses have now been administered across South Florida.
The region recorded 2,415 new cases Thursday. That’s a relatively high number of positive tests, but is driven in part by a high number of reported tests results. The positivity rate in each major South Florida county is either trending downward week-to-week or holding mostly steady, showing the virus does not appear to be spreading more quickly than it has in recent weeks.
Here are some of the weekly numbers for the previous three weeks throughout the South Florida tri-county area:
Miami-Dade
— March 4-10: 38 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 15 newly-reported deaths per day, 1,102 new confirmed cases per day, 5.7% positivity rate, 17,890 vaccine doses administered per day, 4,674 vaccinations completed per day
— March 11-17: 31 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 13 newly-reported deaths per day, 1,176 new confirmed cases per day, 6.5% positivity rate, 18,595 vaccine doses administered per day, 6,271 vaccinations completed per day
— March 18-24: 25 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 8 newly-reported deaths per day, 1,115 new confirmed cases per day, 6% positivity rate, 20,548 vaccine doses administered per day, 9,097 vaccinations completed per day
Broward
— March 4-10: 22 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 13 newly-reported deaths per day, 632 new confirmed cases per day, 6.2% positivity rate, 11,175 vaccine doses administered per day, 3,274 vaccinations completed per day
— March 11-17: 16 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 7 newly-reported deaths per day, 600 new confirmed cases per day, 6% positivity rate, 12,471 vaccine doses administered per day, 4,548 vaccinations completed per day
— March 18-24: 18 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 6 newly-reported deaths per day, 609 new confirmed cases per day, 6% positivity rate, 11,340 vaccine doses administered per day, 4,498 vaccinations completed per day
Palm Beach
— March 4-10: 12 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 5 newly-reported deaths per day, 342 new confirmed cases per day, 5.3% positivity rate, 8,584 vaccine doses administered per day, 4,193 vaccinations completed per day
— March 11-17: 14 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 8 newly-reported deaths per day, 348 new confirmed cases per day, 5.6% positivity rate, 8,150 vaccine doses administered per day, 4,204 vaccinations completed per day
— March 18-24: 9 newly-reported hospitalizations per day, 5 newly-reported deaths per day, 333 new confirmed cases per day, 5.7% positivity rate, 7,085 vaccine doses administered per day, 2,180 vaccinations completed per day
