Another 1,000 COVID-19 cases reported in Florida Tuesday

State health officials reported 1,096 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, raising the total number of diagnoses to 66,000.

And 53 Floridians died and 177 were hospitalized since Monday’s report, raising the state’s death toll among residents to 2,765 and the count of hospitalized Floridians to 11,185. Among non-residents, at least 86 have died and 274 have been hospitalized in the state, but the Department of Health (DOH) had not updated non-resident data at the time of publication.

On Monday, the state reported 966 new cases of the novel coronavirus in its 10 a.m. report. But throughout the day, officials confirmed 1,189 new cases, extending the streak of more than 1,000 daily COVID-19 cases to seven days, the longest since the disease was confirmed in the state in March.

But Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday defended the rising number of new cases, arguing the state is now testing three times as many people as it was in early April, the last time DOH was consistently reporting 1,000 new cases per day.

“Testing more is good. It’s more convenient than ever before, but don’t mistake identifying more cases for thinking that there are more cases one day compared to two months ago,” the Governor said.

While a smaller share of those tested are returning positive now compared to April, the two-week average rate of people who tested positive for the first time has grown from 2.8% to 3.6% throughout the still-young Month of June. DeSantis has touted the daily new positivity rate, which eliminates follow-up tests for people who already had the virus, as his preferred metric to evaluate the state’s progress in battling COVID-19.

DOH received test results for 32,676 people Monday. As of Tuesday’s report, 1.3 million individuals have been tested for COVID-19 in Florida.

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

South Florida’s Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties still remain the state’s largest hot spots of the virus since DOH officials confirmed the first two Florida cases three months ago and are not entering Phase Two along with the state’s 64 other counties.

Since Monday’s report, 224 people in Miami-Dade County have tested positive, raising the overall COVID-19 caseload there to 19,980 people. Seven Miami-Dade residents were confirmed dead, raising the death toll there among Floridians to 774.

Broward County registered 111 new cases, raising its total to 8,035, and three residents, now 346 total, have died there. Palm Beach County is approaching Broward’s count with 7,518 cases after DOH showed 189 new reports and 15 resident fatalities, now 388 total.

Four other counties have more than 2,000 COVID-19 cases: Hillsborough with 2,923, Orange with 2,449, Lee with 2,388 and Collier with 2,128. Four more have upward of 1,000 cases: Duval with 1,824, Pinellas with 1,679, Polk with 1,243 and Manatee, surpassed by Polk Tuesday, with 1,229.

Martin County is the next closest to crossing that threshold, now with 934 cases. Escambia County has 907 cases.