Staff Reports
More than 40,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Florida as of Saturday, according to state health officials.
Now 1,715 Floridians have died of the novel coronavirus after the Department of Health (DOH) added 46 to its death toll from Friday. In the 24 hours between reports, the department confirmed 802 new cases, putting the state’s caseload at 40,001.
The disease has sent 7,093 Floridians to the hospital, including 164 reported Saturday.
With the majority of the state partially reopened Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis and DOH are eyeing a continued decline in either the total number of confirmed positive cases or the share of newly-confirmed COVID-19 cases. The state’s hot spots in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties did not reopen with the rest of the state.
But Palm Beach County will join the rest of the Sunshine State on Phase One Monday.
“I think the people here are very smart,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said, speaking from the county Friday. “We understand the responsibility that we all have to protect the vulnerable populations here.”
In Miami-Dade, DOH reported 13,841 cases and 482 deaths, an increase from 13,664 and 468 Saturday, respectively. In Broward, the state confirmed 5,780 cases, up from 5,688, and 257 deaths, an additional nine over Friday’s count. In Palm Beach, 3,798 people have tested positive, an increase from 3,615, with eight additional deaths, pushing the death toll there to 237.
Orange, Hillsborough, Lee and Duval counties have also long-since crossed 1,000 cases. Patients have been diagnosed in each of the state’s 67 counties.
DeSantis has highlighted Orange County, with 1,505 cases, Hillsborough County, with 1,400, and Duval County, with 1,134, as the state’s examples of growing hot spots that were stamped out. However, Lee County has remained fairly consistent in its number of daily reported cases, surpassing Duval County and approaching Hillsborough County with 1,249 cases total.
Two more inmates died of complications related to COVID-19, state corrections officials said Friday. Over the last three weeks, a total of nine prisoners have died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, according to the latest report from the Department of Corrections.
On Thursday, a record low 1.89% tests among people who had never tested positive returned positive for the first time. That’s down from around 10% when the state started tracking the metric less than three weeks ago and down from the previous record low of 2.55% on Monday.
