Jacob Ogles
Florida officials reported more than 7,100 new coronavirus infections and 129 additional COVID-19-related deaths Wednesday. That includes the first known case of a new strain of virus first seen in individuals from Brazil.
The latest data from the Department of Health shows a total 1,885,661 positive tests for the disease since the first Florida coronavirus case surfaced in March. That’s a total that includes 1,851,151 Florida residents, along with 34,510 out-of-state residents who tested positive here.
That represents a 7,128-case increase over reports released on Tuesday.
Of those total cases, 30,878 cases were fatal. A total of 30,340 Florida residents were felled by the virus, and 538 visitors from elsewhere died in the state of Florida.
On Tuesday, the state tallied another 139,810 test results, of which 10,550 were positive and 129,260 were negative. That’s a positivity rate of 7.55%, below the 10% threshold at which the spread of the virus is considered out of control.
The positivity rate for only new cases among Florida residents was lower, at 5.99%.
But the state remains the leader nationwide in known cases of the variant coronavirus B.1.1.7, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The federal agency reports Florida as host to 489 cases, out of the 1,881 known infections across 45 states.
The state also just saw the first case of the less widespread P.1 variant of the virus. There’s only 5 known cases nationwide of this strain. First traced in Brazilian travelers to Japan, the CDC reports the first case in the U.S. was found at the end of January.
Meanwhile, efforts continue to vaccinate more individuals in Florida. A total of 2,792,118 people have received at least one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, according to the Department of Health’s midday Wednesday report.
That includes 1,492,509 who have already received both recommended shots of one of the vaccines, and another 1,299,609 who received just the first dose and are awaiting their second shot.
Meanwhile, officials expect to start putting another vaccine in arms soon. The Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine is expected to receive Food and Drug Association approval as early as this week.
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.
