Staff Reports
More than 22,000 people in Florida have now tested positive for the novel coronavirus as the state confirmed 453 new cases overnight.
Among the 22,081 positive cases are 646 non-Florida residents tested and isolated in the state. With 20 newly-reported deaths overnight, 591 Floridians have passed away due to complications from COVID-19.
After the state crossed 3,000 hospitalizations Tuesday night, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed an additional 45 hospitalizations, meaning 3,099 Floridians have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since the state reported its first case in March.
Three in five of the state’s coronavirus cases are in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Miami-Dade has 7,863 cases, up from 7,712, Broward has 3,334, up from 3,261, and Palm Beach has 1,782, up from 1,740.
Orange County, which confirmed 13 cases overnight, is the only other county with more than 1,000 cases, now with 1,051.
DOH now has the results of 211,244 people quickly approaching enough tests to cover one in 100 Floridians. At least 1,344 people still await their results, but that figure does not include the likely thousands of people awaiting results from private labs, which conduct the vast majority of tests but don’t alert the state when a test is pending.
On Tuesday, state health officials confirmed the fewest number of positive cases in Florida than it has in more than two weeks, 608. But the department only received 7,360 tests that day, one of the lowest in that time period.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has compared the state’s testing density to that of South Korea and Japan, which mitigated the first wave of the virus in part by testing significant portions of the population.
“You look at some of these other countries, I mean very advanced countries like Japan, look at how many they tested vis a vis their population,” he said Tuesday. “This is a very good ratio, and we’re going to do even better.”
Later that day, he posted a YouTube video in which he said “the data suggests we are flattening the curve” of the pandemic in Florida. Since peaking at 1,307 confirmed cases on April 3, officials have not confirmed more than 1,189 cases in a day.
One comment
Amy Roberts
April 15, 2020 at 11:21 am
Why a You Tube video and not a press briefing. I don’t believe we are flattening the curve yet. He is putting Floridians lives at risk by covering up actual numbers of deaths in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, VA homes, and prisons. We have to pay attention that numbers are included from private facilities, State and Federal run facilities.
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