Ryan Nicol
South Florida’s tri-county area recorded another 65 COVID-19 deaths Wednesday. That’s the highest daily death toll the region has seen in the past week.
It’s also the fourth straight day the daily death toll has increased. More than 4,500 residents in the region have now lost their lives to the virus since the start of the pandemic.
Wednesday’s report from the Department of Health covers new data from Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning. Wednesday’s death toll is not near the peak seen in recent weeks, though it may make some nervous about the region’s move to begin reopening.
Officials are taking steps to reopen as the infection rate has sharply dropped and hospitalizations are dropping as well. Miami-Dade County will also begin allowing indoor dining again beginning Monday, Aug. 31. Palm Beach County is also reopening playgrounds.
Still, officials are warning residents not to ditch social distancing protocols even if parts of the region begin to reopen.
“We are going to have to wear the masks for a few months, I think, for a few more months,” said Miami Mayor Francis Suarez in a talk with Axios Wednesday.
“We’re a place where people come and they congregate. And that’s what makes a virus like this so difficult, because it changes a little bit the of DNA of our city and it forces us to have to adjust.”
That adjustment didn’t hold in May, the last time the region began to reopen. Infections began to spike back up in June, causing officials to pull back on their reopening plans.
Suarez and other local leaders are hoping to avoid a repeat of that pattern this time around.
Here are some of the weekly numbers for the previous three weeks throughout the South Florida tri-county area:
Miami-Dade
— Aug. 5-11: 77 new hospitalizations per day, 23 deaths per day, 1,888 new confirmed cases per day, 14.4% positivity rate
— Aug. 12-18: 57 new hospitalizations per day, 32 deaths per day, 1,277 new confirmed cases per day, 11.1% positivity rate
— Aug. 19-25: 34 new hospitalizations per day, 22 deaths per day, 868 new confirmed cases per day, 8.7% positivity rate
Broward
— Aug. 5-11: 83 new hospitalizations per day, 11 deaths per day, 698 new confirmed cases per day, 9.2% positivity rate
— Aug. 12-18: 98 new hospitalizations per day, 27 deaths per day, 514 new confirmed cases per day, 7.7% positivity rate
— Aug. 19-25: 59 new hospitalizations per day, 16 deaths per day, 344 new confirmed cases per day, 5.7% positivity rate
Palm Beach
— Aug. 5-11: 27 new hospitalizations per day, 10 deaths per day, 375 new confirmed cases per day, 7.5% positivity rate
— Aug. 12-18: 25 new hospitalizations per day, 10 deaths per day, 245 new confirmed cases per day, 6.4% positivity rate
— Aug. 19-25: 21 new hospitalizations per day, 8 deaths per day, 196 new confirmed cases per day, 4.6% 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.
