More than 200 Floridians confirmed dead Wednesday, a new COVID-19 record

For the first time since the pandemic began in March, state health officials have counted 200 deaths in a single day as the daily death toll continues to accelerate.

In the last 24 hours, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed 217 deaths tied to the virus, including one non-resident who died in the state. Wednesday marks the third record-setting day in a week’s time after Tuesday morning’s report included 186 dead residents and five dead non-residents.

In total, 6,333 Floridians have died with COVID-19, as have 124 non-residents in the state.

“These are tough things to see when you see fatalities come in,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said after Tuesday’s once-record 191 deaths.

In long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, officials counted another 76 deaths among residents and staff. In total, 2,836 people tied to those facilities have died.

“Obviously we’re working hard to protect the long-term care facilities,” he said. “We still have fatalities related to long-term care, and then obviously to have families lose somebody is a big deal, and every one of that matters.”

And while the death toll mounts, the Governor is trying to focus attention on the positive trends in the pandemic — infections are down, as are emergency department visits.

Wednesday’s report included 9,446 diagnoses, the fourth-straight day with fewer than 10,000 positive tests. In total, DOH has confirmed 451,423 positive cases, including among 5,172 visitors.

The percent positivity rate has trended up slightly after approaching 11%, but in general is down from the 15% that were testing positive at the beginning of the month. After 12.3% tested positive Tuesday, the seven-day average positivity rate rose to 11.9%.

In the second half of May, that rate was below 3%.

Another 582 Floridians were hospitalized with COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, 25,499 Floridians have been hospitalized.

The Agency for Health Care Administration reports 8,744 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, a decrease of 230 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.