Florida crosses 400,000 COVID-19 infections

Since the beginning of March, more than 400,000 people have tested positive in Florida for COVID-19.

The Sunshine State crossed that threshold Friday after health officials confirmed 12,444 new infections for a total of 402,312 diagnoses.

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. Nine days later, Florida crossed 400,000.

About half of the people testing positive over the past month since the virus surged again are younger than 40, putting them well outside the at-risk elderly demographic. And while Gov. Ron DeSantis tout’s the state’s relatively low fatality rate, daily deaths are accelerating.

On Thursday, the state set a record of 173 fatalities confirmed over the 24 hours prior. With Friday’s update, health officials revised the death toll among Floridians up 135 to 5,653. Meanwhile, 115 non-residents have died in the state after officials tallied one more fatality.

But while the death toll has trended upward, the rate of new infections has plateaued. On Tuesday, 10.5% of possible new cases tested positive, but the rate was 13.3% Thursday, a rebound above the recent average.

That rate wasn’t slow enough for President Donald Trump, who on Thursday canceled the Republican National Convention that had been relocated to Jacksonville.

“The timing for this event is not right. It’s just not right with what’s happened recently, the flareup in Florida. To have a big convention is not the right time,” Trump said at the White House.

Unlike during the first brunt of the pandemic, which was largely limited to dense South Florida, Northeast Florida is among the regions hit hard by outbreaks. Duval County shows 18,781 total cases, a growth of 424 since Thursday’s report.

Miami-Dade County shows 98,430 total infections, an increase of 3,362. Broward County has less than half as many cases, but still a staggering 46,576 — a gain of 1,566. And Palm Beach County added 737 cases for a total of 29,004 infections.

The Tampa Bay Area is also a hot spot region. In Hillsborough County, 26,037 have tested positive, up 605. Another 355 people contracted the virus in Pinellas County, now 14,726 total.

Orange County shows 25,952 total infections after adding 698 Friday morning.

Nearly 3.3 million individuals have been tested in Florida, including 106,280 Thursday. That’s down from the record 142,963 individuals set on July 11.

The new diagnoses cover residents and non-residents confirmed positive Thursday morning to Friday morning. For all day Thursday, the state diagnosed 12,462 positive residents. In total, the Department of Health shows 397,470 residents have tested positive.

Along with fatalities, daily hospitalizations are growing rather than slowing. Officials listed 581 new hospitalizations in the latest report, pushing the total count of Floridians hospitalized to 23,225. Currently 9,210 people are hospitalized, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration down 343 in the last 24 hours.

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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.