20 COVID-19 deaths reported in Brevard County

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Twenty new COVID-19 fatalities were reported in Brevard County and 34 total deaths across Central Florida on Tuesday morning as the terrible toll of early July’s coronavirus surge continued to show.

The unprecedented news out of Brevard, the largest single-day total for reports of new COVID-19 deaths among any of the six counties of Central Florida, was not singular. Five new deaths also were reported in Orange County, three each in Seminole and Volusia counties, two in Osceola County, and one in Lake County.

The latest reports in the Florida Department of Health’s COVID-19 update were the deadliest yet for the entire state. With the 191 fatalities reported Tuesday, now 6,117 residents have died, as have 123 nonresidents in Florida.

The mortality of the coronavirus crisis’ summer resurgence across greater Orlando comes despite hopeful news for the future, as the growth in the region’s caseloads continues to slow. Positive test rates for the virus continue to decrease, in most of the counties, and now those rates registered below the critical 10% mark for several days running in all counties except Osceola.

But the trends that bring the most pain continue to worsen. That follows the established patterns that the worst days for new hospitalizations tend to follow 10-12 days behind the patterns for new cases, and that the worst days for COVID-19 fatalities tend to follow hospitalization trends by another 10-12 days or so.

With Tuesday’s report, the six counties have been averaging a new peak of 58 new hospital admissions on a rolling seven-day average. And on Tuesday the region saw an all-time most of 95 new hospital admissions logged in a single day. The rolling seven-day average has been over 50 new admissions for most of the past 11 days. That rolling seven-day average first topped 40 on July 14, and first topped 30 on July 9.

Thirty-one new COVID-19 patients were reported admitted to Volusia County hospitals in Tuesday’s report from the state, 21 in Orange County, 16 in Brevard, 11 in Seminole County, nine in Osceola, and seven in Lake.

Overall, 1,095 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed across Central Florida in Tuesday’s state report. Of those, 427 were recorded in Orange, 245 in Osceola, 132 in Volusia, 115 in Seminole, 90 in Lake, and 86 in Brevard.

The region’s rolling seven-day average of cases continued a steady decrease, and was at 1,212 on Tuesday. That’s down from a peak average of 1,694 new cases per day for the seven-day stretch that ended July 17 — 12 days 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, consider 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 nonresidents 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.