Weekly statewide positivity rate less than 10% for the fourth day

Statewide COVID-19 trends continue to show improvement from what had been a particularly brutal July.

The Florida Department of Health confirmed 4,155 new cases in Monday’s report representing newly confirmed cases from Sunday morning to Monday morning, about half what the state reported in Sunday’s report.

The new cases bring the state’s pandemic-wide total to 539,961 cases.

While it’s a continued downward trend, Monday’s reports have historically been lower than those from the weekend because they represent data from Sunday when labs might not have been returning as many results.

Still, the positivity rate for new positive test results remains below 10% for the third day in a row at 8.6% Sunday, up slightly from 8.47% Saturday.

The one-week average is also below 10% at 9.6%. It’s the fourth day the one-week average has been below 10%.

Meanwhile, hospital capacity is also strong with 21% of all adult intensive care unit beds still available as of Sunday. That came as 280 additional patients were hospitalized for COVID-19.

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, as of Sunday’s report.

The Agency for Health Care Administration shows people leaving hospitals faster than they are entering. According to AHCA, 6,867 people were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19 Saturday, down 43 from 24 hours earlier.

Floridians are also now watching cases among children as schools districts statewide prepare to head back into school this month — some to brick and mortar schools and others opting to continue e-learning.

To date, there have been 39,735 COVID-19 cases among kids under 18. Of those cases, 36% have been among high-school aged kids 14-17, 26% among elementary school-aged kids 5-10 years old and 17% in middle school ages 11-13. Kids in daycare and pre-k, those ages 1-4, represent 16% of all pediatric cases.

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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.