Florida sees record number of coronavirus cases in one day

Florida has 190,052 confirmed COVID-19 as of Saturday morning after state health officials reported 11,458 new diagnoses.

That marked the second time the Department of Health (DOH) has reported more than 10,000 new cases report to report after Thursday’s morning update included 10,109 new cases. Friday’s report also included a high 9,488 new cases, well up from the about 1,000 cases the state counted daily at the start of June.

With the continued rise reported this Fourth of July, the state looks poised to cross 200,000 overall cases early next week.

Another 18 residents died, raising the Floridian death toll to 3,702. Overall, 101 non-residents have died in the Sunshine State.

An additional 244 residents were hospitalized, raising the count during the pandemic to 15,735.

The daily percent positivity rate has also trended upward over the past two weeks. For Friday, the most recent complete day available, the percent positivity rate among people who had not previously tested positive was 14.1%.

The 11,458 new cases cover Friday morning to Saturday morning. For Friday only, the state diagnosed 13,478 positive cases, including among 11,445 residents.

As Floridians celebrate the nation’s Independence Day, Gov. Ron DeSantis is encouraging people to celebrate outdoors and to avoid the Three Cs: closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings.

“When you’re doing things like fourth of July, obviously be prudent,” he said Thursday. “But you’re much better off, quite frankly, at a beach than you are packing into someone’s home in the air conditioning with this virus. This virus does not like sunlight, heat and humidity.”

The Governor has also said the pandemic’s growth is mostly, if not exclusively, limited to young Floridians. The median age of new cases plummeted from the 50s to the early and mid-30s in the last month, staying at 37 Thursday, but falling to 35 again Friday.

With 29 fewer people in adult ICUs at the time of publication, 4,840 of the state’s 6,074 adult ICU beds are filled, leaving 20% available. That’s a lower percentage over recent weeks, but greater availability than the state had before the pandemic.

Officials have tested 2.1 million people for COVID-19 in the state, including 85,086 individuals Friday, the most in a single day.

While South Florida remains the largest hot spot, cases are also growing in Central Florida, Southwest Florida and the Jacksonville area.

DOH reported 2,418 new cases in Miami-Dade County, where now 44,729 have tested positive. Broward County added 1,346 cases to reach 19,575 and Palm Beach County has 16,149 overall, including 825 more in Saturday’s report.

Hillsborough County has 13,700 after receiving 656 new positives. Cases in Pinellas County are also on the rise with 8,116 total, an increase of 419.

Orange County, another resurgent county, now has 13,262 cases after counting 1,184 new positives.

Duval County reports 8,614 total cases, an increase of 653.

Lee County shows 7,215 cases, a jump of 547 cases. And Collier County had an increase of 179 cases to hit 4,880 overall.

Polk County surpassed Collier County Saturday by adding 246 diagnoses for a total of 4,906.

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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.