Florida adds 6,336 COVID-19 cases Monday

After a Fourth of July weekend that saw more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases each day, state health officials reported 6,366 new cases.

That’s a large drop-off, but typical of results collected over the weekend. The Department of Health shows 206,447 total diagnoses for the novel coronavirus as of Monday morning.

While the number of cases may be down again, it’s a larger increase than Florida counted the same time last week. And at the start of June, the state made headlines for consecutive days of 1,000 new cases — a streak that never ended, but the goal posts shifted.

Another 47 residents died, raising the Floridian death toll to 3,778. And one non-resident died in the state, which now tallies 102 non-residents fatalities.

An additional 150 residents were hospitalized, raising the count during the pandemic to 16,045.

Florida crossed 200,000 overall cases Sunday. It took the Sunshine State 114 days to record its first 100,000 COVID-19 cases between March 1 and June 22. It took 13 days to record the second 100,000.

The daily percent positivity rate has also trended upward over the past month. For Sunday, the most recent complete day available, the percent positivity rate among people who had not previously tested positive was 15%.

The 6,366 new cases cover Sunday morning to Monday morning. For Sunday only, the state diagnosed 7,697 positive cases, including among 6,327 residents.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has said the pandemic’s growth is mostly, if not exclusively, limited to young Floridians. After plummeting from the 50s to the early and mid-30s over the course of the second wave, the median age of new cases was 38 Sunday. That’s the highest that metric has been since the earliest day the state reported the statistic — 39 on June 9.

In recent days, emergency department visits that mention coughing has declined among people younger than 55. Meanwhile, that count has increased slightly among folks 55 and older.

With 85 more people in adult ICUs at the time of publication, 4,824 of the state’s 6,101 adult ICU beds are filled, leaving 20.9% available.

Officials have tested 2.2 million people for COVID-19 in the state, including 44,627 individuals Sunday, a drop of more than 20,000 from Saturday. The department counted 85,076 new tests 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.

___

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.