Staff Reports
State health officials confirmed 31 new deaths from the novel coronavirus as the state’s death toll reached 354 Thursday morning.
Cases are up to 16,364, from Wednesday’s 15,698. That includes 481 non-residents. Of the updated total, 2,149 have hospitalized with COVID-19, up 67 overnight.
South Florida remains the largest hot spot of the disease in the state. More than half of the state’s coronavirus cases are in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
In Miami-Dade, 5,745 people have contracted the coronavirus, an increase of 281 over Wednesday evening. Miami alone has 3,487 cases. Broward has 2,454 cases, up from 2,365, and Palm Beach has 1,260, up from 1,224.
The elderly and people with underlying health conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes, are most at risk for a severe case. While people 65 and older make up less than a quarter of confirmed cases, 55% of those hospitalized were at least 65, as were 83% of those who passed away.
According to numbers published Thursday, 169,885 Floridians filed for unemployment last week, the second-most ever after the previous week’s record-smashing 228,484 applicants. The state, which has struggled for weeks to overcome a failing unemployment claims application system, has launched a paper alternative and, on Wednesday, a new website.
Nationally, 6.6 million people sought unemployment benefits last week. More than one in 10 workers have lost their jobs in just the past three weeks to the coronavirus outbreak.
In long-term care facilities, the 53 new cases constituted an 11% increase over the 475 total cases Tuesday. The rate of daily new cases in long-term care facilities, as a percentage of the previous total, of increased at the start of this month.
DOH now has the results of 152,699 coronavirus tests, up from 143,707 Wednesday. At least 1,395 other people await their results.
The state only received the results of 7,066 individuals Wednesday, the fewest since March 28. But 18% of those tests returned positive, an increase of 8 percentage points over results returned the day before.
Below are the 31 fatalities reported since Wednesday and the county’s death toll to date:
Baker: 2 total
— 66-year-old male
Broward: 66 total
— 80-year-old male who had contact with a known case
— 57-year-old male
— 72-year-old male who had contact with a known case
— 80-year-old male
— 88-year-old female
— 56-year-old male
Duval: 11 total
— 91-year-old female who had contact with a known case
Hillsborough: 9 total
— 74-year-old male who had traveled to Mexico
— 78-year-old male
Manatee: 10 total
— 79-year-old female
— 81-year-old female
Miami-Dade: 63 total
— 71-year-old female
— 84-year-old male
— 77-year-old male
— 94-year-old male
— 92-year-old female who had traveled to New Jersey
— 42-year-old male
— 83-year-old male
— 99-year-old male
— 97-year-old female
— 68-year-old female
— 82-year-old male
— 82-year-old male
— 50-year-old male
Palm Beach: 73 total
— 76-year-old male
— 95-year-old female
— 92-year-old female
— 67-year-old male
Volusia: 5 total
— 79-year-old male who had traveled to Aruba and Curaçao
— 84-year-old male
