6K new COVID-19 cases as positive signs continue

Another 6,229 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Florida, but key indicators suggest outbreaks are trending down as of Sunday.

While daily diagnoses remain well above the fewer than 1,000 confirmed each day the pandemic’s mid-May low point, the percent positivity rate has fallen below 10%. With 8.5% testing positive Saturday, last week’s daily average positivity rate was 9.7%.

Deaths also slowed last week to 1,087 after state health officials recorded a record 1,245 deaths the week prior.

And emergency department visits, which Gov. Ron DeSantis now says is a more accurate indicator, continued their decline.

The week of July 5 saw 6,255 emergency department visits with flu-like illnesses and 15,999 for illnesses like COVID-19. Over the following four weeks, those visits have dropped to 2,494 and 5,717 respectively.

The Department of Health reported that 254 more Florida residents have tested positive since Saturday’s report. And the Agency for Health Care Administration shows people leaving hospitals faster than they are entering. According to AHCA, 6,867 people are currently hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, down 43 from 24 hours earlier.

Health officials also tied 77 more deaths to the virus since Saturday’s report, a recent normal for Sunday reports. Overall, 8,186 Florida residents and 129 nonresidents in the state have died with COVID-19.

Overall, 532,806 people, including 5,770 nonresidents, have tested positive in the state.

The 6,229 new diagnoses reported Sunday comprised residents and nonresidents whose diagnoses DOH confirmed between Saturday morning and Sunday morning. For all of Saturday, the state confirmed cases in 6,248 residents.

Nearly 4 million people have been tested for COVID-19. On Saturday, the state received 85,343 results.

In nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, officials counted 31 resident and staff deaths for a total of 3,493.

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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 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.