Jacob Ogles
Florida overnight reported another 156 deaths tied to COVID-19. The news came as debate raged over whether the Sunshine State had administered vaccines aggressively enough during the pandemic.
In total, the Department of Health on Monday reported a total of 1,658,169 positive tests since the coronavirus first surfaced in Florida in March. That’s an increase of 8,720 cases over Sunday’s report.
More grim, the state reports 25,693 COVID-19-related deaths, a jump of 156 not previously recorded fatalities from Sunday’s report. The total includes 25,293 Florida residents, as well as 400 other who live elsewhere but died here.
Overall, about 10.92% of tests reported on Sunday came back positive, or 14,935 compared to 121,889 negative tests. That’s a jump back above 10%, meaning the spread of the disease is not considered under control.
That’s after results from Saturday reported a positivity rate of 8.36%, the first time that number had dropped below 10% in more than a month.
In addition to the positive tests, the state reports 285,858 individuals have tested positive for antigens, meaning they likely had COVID-19 at some point in the past several months but were not tested at that time.
But the state also reports it has now administered more than 1.5 million vaccines.
A total of 1,407,411 individuals have now received at least one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Of those, 1,249,439 have received only their first shot, while 157,972 have received a booster as well and completed the series of inoculations.
How much progress that represents depends on who you ask.
White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki on Monday said Florida had only administered about 50% of the vaccine supply received from the federal government to date.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has been moving at a solid clip, focusing on seniors. The state expects to have offered the vaccine to every nursing home resident and staff member by the end of January, DeSantis said.
He also claimed prematurely last week that the state had vaccinated a million individuals age 65 and older. But as of Monday’s report, the state was still just shy of that goal, with 967,479 in that demographic vaccinated.
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 includes the previous day’s totals and 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.
