10K cases, 90 fatalities in latest COVID-19 report

State health officials confirmed 10,328 new COVID-19 cases and linked 90 deaths to the disease in the last 24 hours.

As of Saturday morning, 337,569 people have tested positive with the novel coronavirus in Florida, including 333,201 state residents. Meanwhile, the overall death toll in the state crossed 5,000, with 4,895 dead residents and 107 nonresidents.

In terms of volume, 90 dead residents is a slight reprieve from the rash of 100 lives the state has lost to COVID-19 on a daily basis.

On Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked if he takes responsibility for the thousands dead in the state. However, he declined to answer the question directly.

“I think every time you have fatalities for any reason, I think it’s a tragedy and we certainly have seen fatalities in Florida, particularly recently,” he said. “We’ve seen fatalities particularly in places down in Miami-Dade, and it’s a terrible, terrible thing.”

He continued, highlighting the state’s response in nursing homes and other longterm care facilities, where 2,343 residents and staff have died. When asked again if he takes responsibility and what to say to people concerned about the rising case numbers, he ended the press conference.

But a rising number of the state’s elderly population, an at-risk demographic for severe infects, have tested positive in the weeks since the median age of new cases plummeted from the 50s to the early 30s throughout the end of May and beginning of April.

The median age of Friday’s new positive residents was again 41, the oldest median age since state health officials began reporting the metric last month.

Deaths are a lagging indicator of the virus, coming at least three weeks behind upticks in cases. About five weeks ago, Florida began seeing multiple thousands of new cases daily.

The Department of Health has also counted an elevated number of hospitalizations, including 441 since Friday’s report to raise the state’s total to 20,632. That includes the 9,151 the Agency for Health Care Administration currently shows hospitalized with the disease.

The 10,328 new cases cover residents and non-residents confirmed positive Friday morning to Saturday morning. For all day Friday, the state diagnosed 10,292 positive residents.

The percent positivity rate for prospective new cases has been declining over the last two weeks from above 15% to 12.2% Friday. That trend has played out in parts of the state like Central Florida, leading the Governor to speculate that the region could soon be through the worst of the storm.

The positivity rate statewide was below 3% in the second half of May.

On Wednesday, Florida crossed 300,000 COVID-19 cases. It took Florida 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 and 10 days to reach the third. Two days later, the state is more than a third of the way to the fourth 100,000.

More than 2.9 million individuals have been tested in Florida, including 92,633 Friday. That is rising again but down from the record 142,969 individuals set a week ago.

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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.