Big increases continue in greater Orlando COVID-19 caseloads

The numbers of new coronavirus cases continued to climb Thursday in most of the other counties making up the greater Orlando area, with Orange County logging another 584 cases in the latest state reports.

Orange County’s latest additions, reported as the increase between Wednesday’s and Thursday’s reports from the Florida Department of Health, means there now have been 11,458 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the county since the disease first appeared in Florida in March, with 70% of those cases emerging just in the past two weeks.

Statewide, officials reported 10,109 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, the first time Florida has recorded more than 10,000 cases in a 24-hour period.

Osceola County set a new worst 24-hour total in Thursday’s report with 185 new cases recorded the latest update. Brevard County had even more, 218 new cases, though that’s below the peak seen Sunday. Another 155 cases were logged in Seminole County, and 153 in Volusia County.

Within Central Florida, only Lake County saw a decline compared with Wednesday’s report. The 98 new cases listed for Lake were 10 fewer than were listed the day before.

Overall, Central Florida added 1,393 new COVID-19 cases in Thursday’s report, up from 1,205 the day before, and 704 the day before that.

Part of the increase was due to a new uptick in test results being returned in most counties, yet positive test rates in most Central Florida counties remained over 10%, and some climbed compared with the previous report.

In Orange, 16.7% of about 2,700 new test results came back positive on Wednesday. That’s up from 15.4% the day before, and 12.5% the day before that.

In Osceola, 15.2% of about 1,000 new test results came back positive, showing a decline in the positive-test rate from the previous few days. For Tuesday, the positive rest was 18.2%.

In Brevard, the number of new tests results increased dramatically, with more than 2,400 returned Wednesday, compared with fewer than 1,700 the day before. Brevard’s positive test rate fell to just 8%, down from 9.6% the day before.

Seminole received more than 1,000 new test results Wednesday and the positive test rate was 13%, up from 12.5% the day before.

Volusia saw a positive test rate of 13.3% for just over 800 new test results returned, up from 11.8% the day before.

Lake’s positive test rate was only 5.5% on more than 1,200 new test results that came in Wednesday. The day before, Lake’s positive test rate was 13%.

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Editor’s note on methodology: The Florida Department of Health releases new data every morning around 10:45 a.m. The total number reported in those daily reports include the previous day’s totals as well as the most up to date data as of about 9:30 a.m.

Florida Politics uses the report-over-report increase to document the number of new cases each day because it represents the most up-to-date data available. Some of the more specific data, including positivity rates and demographics, considers a different data set that includes only cases reported the previous day.

This is important to note because the DOH report lists different daily totals than our methodology to show day-over-day trends. Their numbers do not include non-residents who tested positive in the state and they only include single-day data, therefore some data in the DOH report may appear lower than what we report.

Our methodology was established based on careful consideration among our editorial staff to capture both the most recent and accurate trends.