201 Floridians reported dead from COVID-19 Wednesday

State health officials reported the deaths of 201 Floridians Wednesday morning tied to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

That’s more than the 165 deaths reported in the previous four days combined and the most deaths reported in a day since Aug. 18. Overall, 12,115 Floridians and 154 non-Floridians have died throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The largest share of those deaths, 21, occurred Monday, and 40 occurred outside the last 30 days.

Over the last seven days, the death toll has grown by an average of 88 residents per day, down from a peak of 185 daily in early August.

With the latest update, which includes findings made since Tuesday morning, 652,148 people, including 7,367 non-residents, have tested positive in the Sunshine State.

Between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, the Department of Health received 2,056 positive results. For all-day Tuesday, DOH received 2,352 positive cases with a median age of 39, a drop from a recent high of 46 as schools and universities reopen but up from a median of 35 three days prior.

The fastest-growing age cohort for the virus is Floridians aged 15 to 24. Of those positive cases from Sunday, 412 — or 23% — of all positives came from that age group.

Throughout August, 14% of cases were aged 15 to 24. Through the first seven days of September, 25% of those testing positive fell in that age cohort.

The summer Sunbelt COVID-19 resurgence was precipitated by a surge in COVID-19 cases among younger Floridians. In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed to a dramatic drop in the median age of positive cases from the 50s to the mid and low 30s.

Before the recent uptick, the share of new cases was roughly evenly distributed across those aged 15 to 64, spanning five age cohorts. The number of new cases aged 15 to 24 is now more than double that of the next-closest age cohort.

Outbreaks in schools will happen, but spread among low-risk children would do little to spread it to adults, Dr. Scott Atlas — a recent appointee to the White House Coronavirus Task Force — told reporters during a three-stop tour of Florida last week.

The week of July 5 saw 6,255 emergency department visits with flu-like illnesses and 15,999 for illnesses like COVID-19. Last week, those visits dropped to 1,841 and 3,290, respectively, for an eighth consecutive week of decline.

Overall, 40,517 Floridians have been hospitalized, an increase of 322 since Tuesday’s report. But the Agency for Health Care Administration reports that 3,073 people are currently hospitalized with the disease, down 81 from 24 hours earlier, and the lowest since the agency began reporting that metric.

In total, 4.8 million Floridians have been tested for COVID-19, as have 20,086 nonresidents in the state. On Tuesday, DOH received 44,063 test results.

The positivity rate Sunday rose from 4.9% to 5.9%. Over the last seven days, each day’s positivity rate has averaged 5.4%.

The state’s self-imposed target threshold is 10%, but some medical experts have pointed to 5% as when services like schools could start reopening.

_____

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 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.