Ryan Nicol
South Florida’s tri-county area saw 37 additional resident deaths Friday due to COVID-19.
That’s down from 54 deaths in Thursday’s Department of Health (DOH) report. It’s the second straight day the death toll has dropped.
Friday’s DOH report covers data received from Thursday morning through Friday morning. That report continues to show new cases are dropping in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Over the past seven days, from Aug. 21-27, just 8.1% of COVID-19 tests in Miami-Dade County came back positive. That’s after that number routinely topped 20% in July.
Friday’s positivity rate was the lowest in Miami-Dade County in more than two months. The same was true for Broward. Its positivity rate now sits at just 5.1% over the past week. That’s the lowest since mid-June when cases had just begun spiking again following the region’s attempt to reopen.
Officials are moving to slowly reopen once again, though leaders are still warning residents to following social distancing guidelines. With flu season coming up, even a moderate uptick in cases could cause serious problems for hospitals in the region.
Hospitalizations are up slightly week-to-week in Palm Beach County. That metric has sharply dropped in Miami-Dade and Broward counties over the previous two weeks. Here are some of the weekly numbers for the previous three weeks throughout the South Florida tri-county area:
Miami-Dade
— Aug. 7-13: 66 new hospitalizations per day, 27 deaths per day, 1,887 new confirmed cases per day, 13.8% positivity rate
— Aug. 14-20: 51 new hospitalizations per day, 31 deaths per day, 1,107 new confirmed cases per day, 10.3% positivity rate
— Aug. 21-27: 33 new hospitalizations per day, 22 deaths per day, 734 new confirmed cases per day, 8.1% positivity rate
Broward
— Aug. 7-13: 87 new hospitalizations per day, 19 deaths per day, 686 new confirmed cases per day, 8.9% positivity rate
— Aug. 14-20: 93 new hospitalizations per day, 22 deaths per day, 470 new confirmed cases per day, 7.2% positivity rate
— Aug. 21-27: 48 new hospitalizations per day, 15 deaths per day, 292 new confirmed cases per day, 5.1% positivity rate
Palm Beach
— Aug. 7-13: 29 new hospitalizations per day, 8 deaths per day, 349 new confirmed cases per day, 7.3% positivity rate
— Aug. 14-20: 19 new hospitalizations per day, 11 deaths per day, 224 new confirmed cases per day, 5.9% positivity rate
— Aug. 21-27: 24 new hospitalizations per day, 7 deaths per day, 205 new confirmed cases per day, 4.8% 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.
