Staff Reports
State health officials confirmed 50 fatalities involving COVID-19 and 497 new cases in a Thursday report.
As of the update, 1,268 Floridians have died due to complications from the disease and 33,690 people, including 889 non-Florida residents, have tested positive for the virus. Another 5,581 people have been hospitalized for it, 170 more than the day before.
Three in five of the state’s COVID-19 cases are concentrated in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, which have been ongoing hot spots for the virus during the outbreak. South Florida represents a growing share of confirmed cases as the influx of new cases in other urban areas slows to a trickle.
While Florida begins its reopening process, introduced Wednesday, the three counties will stay under the current stay-at-home order until new cases start declining there. Gov. Ron DeSantis said that downward trend has already started, just not as fast as the rest of the state.
In Miami-Dade, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 12,063 cases and 352 deaths in total, an increase from 11,927 and 338 respectively. In Broward, the state has confirmed 4,953 cases, up from 4,898, and 185 deaths, an increase of three over Monday. In Palm Beach, 2,963 people have tested positive, an increase from 2,911, and an additional eight Floridians died, pushing the death toll there to 186.
Orange, Hillsborough, Duval and Lee counties also have more than 1,000 confirmed cases of the virus. But the Governor has pointed to the Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville areas as success stories in the state’s fight against the pandemic.
Also Thursday, DOH added a tab to its interactive COVID-19 tracker showing weekly health metrics since mid-March, when the Florida outbreak began in earnest.
Statewide, the number of weekly emergency department visits for influenza- and COVID-19-like symptoms has been in decline. The number of new COVID-19 cases and positive cases as a percent of those tested per week was growing exponentially until the week of April 5, when the trend in both metrics made a hard reversal.
DOH now has the results of 382,966 people, nearly 9,000 more than the day before. Another 1,187 people await their results from department-coordinated labs, but likely thousands more await their results from private labs.
Along with expanding testing, protecting nursing home residents has also been a focus of the state’s COVID-19 response. As of Wednesday, 418 longterm care facilities have active cases of the disease. As of Thursday’s report, 423 residents and staff of those facilities have died.
