Jacob Ogles
Florida officials reported nearly 7,000 new coronavirus cases overnight, and more than 200 new deaths.
A total of 1,744,618 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 in Florida since the pandemic first surfaced in March, according to a report released Wednesday. That’s an increase of 6,979 cases reported overnight.
That total includes 1,712,326 Florida residents, 27,019 of whom died with the coronavirus in their system.
Another 32,293 individuals who live out of state tested positive in Florida, and 453 of those individuals died here.
In total, the Department of Health tabulated 27,472 deaths in the pandemic thus far. The tally represents an increase of 203 deaths since the report released Tuesday.
A total of 73,266 have been hospitalized in Florida over the course of the crisis. That’s 408 more than reported the day prior.
And positivity rates remained above 10%, just barely, for the third day in a row. Another 10,413 positive test results were added to state totals on Tuesday, compared to 92,987 that were negative, resulting in a positivity rate of 10.07%. Health officials say the spread of the pandemic is not considered under control when the positivity exceeds 10%.
Tuesday’s rate was down from 10.78% on Monday and 12% on Sunday. But the two days prior health officials reported positivity rates of 7.63% on Saturday and 8.72% on Friday.
For only new Florida cases, the positivity rate on Tuesday was 7.77%, the fifth day that number sat below 10%.
Meanwhile, Florida reports 1,788,326 individuals have now received at least one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.
That includes 1,367,011 who have been administered a first shot of vaccine, and another 421,315 who already received a booster and completed the schedule of shots.
A total of 1,293,279 individuals age 65 and older have received at least one dose of vaccine.
Florida has placed a priority of vaccinating frontline health care workers and seniors, with more individuals clamoring for access. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan on Wednesday called on Gov. Ron DeSantis to allow more hospice care workers to receive the vaccine. That came a day after criminal defense lawyers made their case for access.
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.
