Florida reports more than 29K coronavirus-related deaths since start of pandemic

More than 29,000 Florida residents and visitors to the state have now died of COVID-19 related causes.

Florida’s Department of Health reported another 190 deaths related to the coronavirus, along with 7,617 more known infections.

That brings the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,814,422 since the pandemic first surfaced in Florida. That includes 1,781,450 residents of the state and 32,972 others who tested positive while visiting here.

Deaths tied to the pandemic in Florida rose to 29,061, including 28,565 Floridians and 496 out-of-state travelers who died while in the Sunshine State.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report Florida has discovered 347 cases of the B.1.1.7 mutated virus, an increase of four known infections since Thursday.

There appears to be a growing showdown between Florida’s elected officials, at least Republicans, and the White House regarding potential travel restrictions on Florida. President Joe Biden’s administration has floated the idea of putting rules in place to contain the variant, and Florida has the highest concentration in the U.S. Infections were recently discovered at the University of Central Florida campus.

For the fourth day in a row, the state saw overall positivity rates for tests on Thursday come in below 10%, at 8.07%, reflecting 11,631 new positives and 132,528 negatives. As far as only new cases for Florida residents the positivity rate was just 6.22%.

Health officials consider the spread of the virus under control when less than 10% of tests in a day come back positive.

Efforts continue to vaccinate more individuals in the state. Health officials report 2,225,304 individuals have now been vaccinated in Florida.  That’s about 59,393 more inoculations reported midday Friday compared to midday Thursday.

That includes 963,004 individuals who have completed a two-shot regimen of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, and another 1,262,300 who have received only their first dose.

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 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.