90th day of COVID-19 in Florida: 1M people tested

A medical healthcare worker drops a specimen collection into a container after testing a motorist for COVID-19. Image via AP.

More than 1 million residents and visitors in the state have been tested for COVID-19 during the pandemic as the state Sunday crossed the 90th day since the first Floridians tested positive.

The Department of Health (DOH) received the results of 30,063 people, raising the total count of people tested to 1,022,265, approaching 5% of the state’s population. As of Sunday, 56,163 people, including 699 confirmed since Saturday’s report, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

More than 90% of confirmed positive cases in the state were tested in commercial and hospital labs. The remainder were confirmed by the Florida Bureau of Public Health Laboratories and federal labs.

Two residents of Duval County, a resident of Leon County and a resident of Putnam County were confirmed dead since Saturday. In total, 2,534 people have died, including 2,451 Floridians and 1,230 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

Over weekends, the state confirms fewer deaths tied to COVID-19, in part explaining the relatively low death count reported Sunday.

And 10,453 have been hospitalized, an additional 78 since Saturday. One of the newly-hospitalized cases was a non-Florida resident, making 263 non-residents who have been hospitalized in the state.

South Florida’s Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties still remain the state’s largest hot spots of the virus since officials confirmed the first two Florida cases on March 1.

Since Saturday’s report, 174 people in Miami-Dade County have tested positive, raising the overall COVID-19 caseload there to 18,000 people. The county’s death toll, including 11 non-residents, is 711.

Broward County registered 56 new cases, raising its total to 7,123, and 313 Floridians and 21 non-Floridians have died. Palm Beach County now has 5,996 cases after DOH showed 98 new reports and at least 350 fatalities, including 13 non-residents.

Eight other counties have more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases: Hillsborough with 2,201, Orange with 2,002, Lee with 1,908, Duval with 1,644, Collier with 1,539, Pinellas with 1,297, Manatee with 1,045 and Polk with 1,027. Escambia County is the next closes to crossing that threshold, now with 815 cases.

Florida has received as many as 77,934 individuals’ results in a single day, but Gov. Ron DeSantis and Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz say the demand for tests falls short of the state’s expanding testing apparatus.