Isaias halves new COVID-19 diagnoses as positivity rates fall again

State health officials confirmed 4,752 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the fewest in a day in more than a month.

But while the new cases Monday are half as many as officials were confirming last week, lower testing is the main driver of the current decline.

Tropical Storm Isaias, downgraded from a hurricane but on track to strengthen as it leaves Florida’s shores, threatened COVID-19 testing sites across the state and ultimately closed sites mostly along the Atlantic coast. As a result, the state received results for only 60,994 individuals Sunday, the fewest since July 8.

While testing is down, so is the positivity rate, which was in the single digits a second day in a row, the first time that’s happened since mid-June.

On Sunday, 9.1% of those tested came back positive after that count had fallen to 9.3% the day before. The seven-day average percent positivity rate fell below 11% Sunday.

As of Monday’s report, which gives updates from Sunday morning to Monday morning, 491,884 people have tested positive out of 3.8 million tested.

Sunday and Monday reports typically include a lull in diagnoses, new hospitalizations and death confirmations. That stayed true Monday with only 73 confirmed deaths and 216 confirmed hospitalizations.

Last week, the Department of Health confirmed the deaths of 1,245 Floridians. The death toll is now 7,157, plus 122 non-residents who have died in the state.

A total of 27,366 Floridians have been hospitalized throughout the pandemic. The Agency for Health Care Administration reports 7,991 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, an increase of 23 in the last 24 hours.

Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch has tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the highest ranking state official to do so. He and Deputy Secretary Ricky Dixon tested positive after Inch recently returned from Columbia Correctional Institution, a North Florida prison where 1,300 inmates and 72 corrections workers have tested positive for the virus, according to a press release issued by corrections officials.

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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.