126 people confirmed dead as another 12K test positive for COVID-19

State health officials on Saturday reported 126 COVID-19 deaths as the death toll continues to accelerate in Florida.

Those deaths, confirmed since Friday morning, include 124 Floridians and two non-residents who died in the state. In all, 5,777 residents have died, as have 117 non-residents.

While the Department of Health confirmed fewer new deaths than it did on Thursday — when it reported a record 173 resident deaths — Saturday’s update increased the weekly average of daily deaths from 121 to 126.

Diagnoses remain high despite Gov. Ron DeSantis saying he is seeing positive trends in parts of the state. With 12,199 new cases, 414,511 people have tested positive in the state, including 409,585 residents.

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. On Friday, nine days later, Florida crossed 400,000.

Both the Governor and health experts have said the disease’s spread has plateaued, pointing to the declining positivity rate for people who are possible new positive cases. Jumps in the caseload have corresponded with jumps in testing as the state routinely tests more than 100,000 people per day.

The downward trend continued Friday, when 11.4% of people tested positive, below the week’s daily average 12.5%.

More than 3.3 million individuals have been tested in Florida, including 120,688 Friday. That’s down from the record 142,962 individuals set July 11.

The new diagnoses cover residents and non-residents confirmed positive Friday morning to Saturday morning. For all day Friday, the state diagnosed 12,180 positive residents.

Among those individuals, the median age was 41, a consistent mark for the metric over recent weeks. That age plummeted from the 50s to the mid-30s as the virus spread throughout late May and early June.

Along with fatalities, daily hospitalizations are growing rather than slowing. Officials listed 505 new hospitalizations in the latest report, pushing the total count of Floridians hospitalized to 23,730.

Even as hospitalizations are on the rise, hospitals are discharging patients faster than they enter. Currently 8,974 people are hospitalized, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration down 236 in the last 24 hours. That followed a decrease of 343 over the previous 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.