Ryan Nicol
Palm Beach County saw a record 27 new COVID-19 deaths in Friday’s report from the Department of Health. That report covers data from Thursday morning to Friday morning.
The mark comes as Broward County, which neighbors Palm Beach to the south, saw no new COVID-19 deaths for the second straight day. Miami-Dade County recorded 25 new deaths Friday.
Death totals have fluctuated in the region over the past few days. While Wednesday’s report showed the third-highest ever death toll in the region, Thursday’s numbers saw fewer than 20 new deaths.
Still, the region’s six highest daily death totals have all been recorded in the past 10 days. Over the previous week, an average of 53 people have died per day across the South Florida tri-county area. For the seven days prior, that number was 67 deaths per day.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties showed slight improvement Friday when it came to hospital space. For weeks, both have sat above 90% capacity for adult intensive care unit (ICU) beds, save a few exceptions.
On Friday, both were below that benchmark. Miami-Dade was at 89% capacity while Broward sat just above 88%.
Both still remain above the state’s 83% capacity. Hospitalizations are still trending upward in Broward and Miami-Dade from week to week as well.
Palm Beach has just above 75% of its adult ICU beds filled and shows its hospitalization numbers trending slightly downward.
The share of COVID-19 tests coming back positive did tick up slightly from day to day in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Those numbers are down week over week, though, in all three major counties, which can be a sign the virus’s spread is slowing.
Here are some of the weekly numbers for the previous three weeks throughout the South Florida tri-county area:
Miami-Dade
— July 17-23: 59 new hospitalizations per day, 14 deaths per day, 2,928 new confirmed cases per day, 19.3% positivity rate
— July 24-30: 61 new hospitalizations per day, 34 deaths per day, 2,852 new confirmed cases per day, 17.6% positivity rate
— July 31-Aug. 6: 92 new hospitalizations per day, 28 deaths per day, 1,568 new confirmed cases per day, 14.5% positivity rate
Broward
— July 17-23: 39 new hospitalizations per day, 10 deaths per day, 1,386 new confirmed cases per day, 14.6% positivity rate
— July 24-30: 46 new hospitalizations per day, 23 deaths per day, 1,265 new confirmed cases per day, 12.4% positivity rate
— July 31-Aug. 6: 54 new hospitalizations per day, 10 deaths per day, 776 new confirmed cases per day, 10.3% positivity rate
Palm Beach
— July 17-23: 31 new hospitalizations per day, 12 deaths per day, 662 new confirmed cases per day, 11.2% positivity rate
— July 24-30: 26 new hospitalizations per day, 10 deaths per day, 604 new confirmed cases per day, 9.6% positivity rate
— July 31-Aug. 6: 25 new hospitalizations per day, 15 deaths per day, 399 new confirmed cases per day, 8.8% positivity rate
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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.
