Nearly another 10K COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday

With another bulk of COVID-19 tests comes another spike of new diagnoses. State health officials reported 9,989 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, lifting the overall count by Wednesday morning to 223,783.

Since Tuesday’s report, 48 residents have died, raising the death toll to 3,889 Floridians. The state has also tallied 102 dead non-residents.

An additional 333 residents were hospitalized, raising the count during the pandemic to 16,758.

The 9,989 new cases cover residents and non-residents Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning. For Tuesday only, the state found 10,044 newly positive residents.

Of the new cases among residents Tuesday, the median age was 39, a slight decline from the median of 40 reported for the day prior. Gov. Ron DeSantis has pointed to the median age metric to show that the state is keeping at-risk demographics safe, but after plummeting from the 50s to the mid to early 30s last month, the metric has been on the rise again.

Tuesday’s percent positivity rate, among all people who had not previously tested positive, was 14.2%. That’s a slight drop compared to the last week, but still above the state’s target 10%.

Officials have tested 2.3 million people, or a tenth of the state’s population, including 75,865 individuals Tuesday, an increase of 27,357 from Monday.

The department counted 85,076 new tests Friday, the most in a single day.

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.

With 491 more people in adult ICUs at the time of publication compared to Tuesday morning, 5,315 of the state’s 6,222 adult ICU beds are filled, leaving 14.6% available. Data from the Agency for Health Care Administration shows 42 hospitals have reached their adult ICU capacity.

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

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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.