Jacob Ogles
The Florida Department of Health reported nearly 14,000 new cases of COVID-19 in its latest pandemic report released Wednesday.
The state since March has tallied 1,517,472 diagnoses, including for 27,324 out-of-state visitors. That’s an increase of 13,980 compared to the report released Tuesday, when the number climbed over 1.5 million for the first time.
That included 23,759 individuals who died with the coronavirus in their system, including another 174 deaths reported overnight. Of the total deaths , 363 were individuals not living in Florida, but who died here.
The positivity rate consistently stayed north of 10%. On Tuesday, 12.46% of tests reported to the state, 19,685 results out of 138,238 received, came back positive for COVID-19.
In fact, the lowest positivity rate for the past two weeks was 11.97% on New Year’s Day. The last time the Department of Health reported a positivity below 10%, the desired level for containing spread of the virus, was on Dec. 23 with infections spiking since Christmas.
Nearly a third of deaths among Florida residents have been age 85 or older, and about 83% of deaths were for those 65 or older.
Meanwhile, the state now reports 707,478 vaccines for the coronavirus have been administered in Florida. In total, 646,327 patients received the first shot, while 61,151 received the required two doses to complete the vaccine schedule.
That means another 7,237 individuals were reported vaccinated since Tuesday’s report. Notably, Gov. Ron DeSantis at a press conference in Naples said there’s likely more vaccines that have been administered that have not shown up in reports yet.
Still, state Senators from both sides of the aisle on Wednesday pressed Surgeon General Scott Rivkees on why the state continues to see more infections reported each day than new vaccinations.
Meanwhile, another member of the Legislature, Rep. Anthony Sabatini, entered quarantine after an exposure to COVID-19 after spending months fighting efforts to control the spread such as lockdowns and mask requirements.
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.
