4K people test positive for COVID-19, 91 die as favorable trends continue

Florida reported a slight uptick in daily COVID-19 diagnoses, but new fatalities tied to the virus fell to double digits.

Friday’s pandemic report from the Department of Health brought 3,895 new cases and 91 fatalities. Overall, 615,806 people have tested positive and 11,099 have died in the Sunshine State.

While 91 people — all residents — died, the death toll only grew by 88. DOH removed two fatalities from the death toll among residents, which is now 10,957. The department also struck one non-resident from the death toll.

After peaking earlier this month, the increasing death toll is slowing down. In the last seven days, the death toll among Floridians averaged 113 per day, down from 185 per day in the seven days leading up to Aug. 5.

For the first time since mid-July, Florida reported fewer than 100 COVID-19 fatalities during an update between Tuesday and Saturday. Sunday and Monday updates include mostly data from the weekend, when fewer deaths are confirmed.

However, deaths are a lagging indicator of the pandemic, and Florida has seen signs of improvement for weeks.

Florida’s testing positivity rate decreased slightly Thursday from 6.5% to 5.7%. The seven-day daily average decreased from 6% to 5.9%.

Ten percent is the state’s self-imposed target threshold, but some medical experts and the World Health Organization have pointed to 5% as when services like schools could start reopening.

Florida’s positivity rate dropped below 3% in May but rebounded during the pandemic’s Sunbelt surge.

The 3,895 new cases cover residents and non-residents confirmed positive Thursday morning to Wednesday morning, down from the peak of 15,300 diagnoses reported in one mid-July update. For all-day Wednesday, the state diagnosed 3,849 positive residents, who had a median age of 42. In total, 609,074 residents have tested positive.

Even though the positivity rate and caseload shows favorable signs, Gov. Ron DeSantis has stopped emphasizing the rate and is instead pointing to emergency department metrics. Emergency department visits and the statewide hospital census, DeSantis says, offer realtime data and aren’t contingent on reporting from private testing labs.

The week of July 5 saw 6,255 emergency department visits with flu-like illnesses and 15,999 for illnesses like COVID-19. For the week of Aug. 16, six weeks later, those visits dropped to 2,001 and 4,097 respectively.

Overall, 38,029 Floridians have been hospitalized, an increase of 311 since Thursday’s report. But the Agency for Health Care Administration reports that 3,995 people are currently hospitalized with the disease, down 290 from 24 hours earlier and the lowest since the agency began reporting that metric.

DOH has received results from 4.5 million Floridians and 19,000 non-residents tested for the virus. Among those tested were 58,766 individuals tested Wednesday.

As schools reopen, DOH is tracking cases in the state’s youth. As of Wednesday, 48,928 Floridians 17 or younger have tested positive, 611 have been hospitalized and eight have died. The youngest person to die in Florida was a 6-year-old Hillsborough County girl whose death the state reported on Friday.

This week, the Governor’s task force on reopening long-term care facilities finalized its findings on how to reopen facilities’ doors to visitors. Through Friday morning, 4,620 residents and staff in long-term care facilities have died.

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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, consider 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.