Florida coronavirus caseload nears 26K

Nearly 26,000 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Florida as state health officials confirmed 504 new cases overnight.

According to a Sunday morning report, the Department of Health (DOH) has now confirmed 25,996 positive cases, including 696 non-Florida residents. And 16 Floridians have died due to complications from COVID-19, raising the state’s death toll to 764.

An additional 21 people were hospitalized overnight as the state now reports that the virus has hospitalized 3,766 Floridians.

Miami-Dade County became the first county to cross 200 fatalities, now with 202 as officials confirmed four dead overnight. Palm Beach and Broward counties, with 121 and 115 deaths respectively, are also in the South Florida hot spot that still is home to three in five of the state’s COVID-19 cases.

Miami-Dade County has 9,166 cases, up from 9,045 Saturday, Broward County has 3,960, up from 3,838, and Palm Beach County has 2,156, up from 2,138.

With the state increasing access to testing, including walk-in testing sites and the expansion of rapid testing, 256,698 people have been tested for the virus in the state. Another 1,179 people await their results from DOH-coordinated labs, but likely thousands more results are pending in private labs.

In long-term care facilities, 1,785 residents and staff have tested positive while 175 people have died. And after resisting calls to release the names of the facilities with positive cases, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered DOH to make the list public Saturday.

He also ordered schools to stay closed through the remainder of the academic year after he and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran held out hope to send students back for the final two weeks before summer.

New modeling suggests Florida may have already passed the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the administration has been optimistic about the trajectory of new cases. Last week, DeSantis announced a task force on reopening the economy that will meet by phone each day this week and return its findings for the immediate future by the end of the week.