Jacob Ogles
Florida health officials reported 99 previously unreported pandemic-related deaths overnight.
A daily report on the COVID-19 crisis also reported 2,826 new coronavirus infections in the state since Sunday’s report. That brings the pandemic total to 1,979,634 cases in Florida. That figure represents every positive test for the virus since it surfaced in Florida last March, including 1,943,135 Florida residents and another 36,499 out-of-state visitors tested while in the state.
The human toll of COVID-19 in Florida grew to 32,959 total deaths, including 32,348 who lived in in Florida and another 611 who lived elsewhere but died here.
While the totals confirm the continued impact of the pandemic on Florida lives, the growth in deaths and infections both came in lower than even just a month ago. That may be thanks to a modest number of test results, for about 55,766 people, that were reported to the state on Sunday.
Of those results put into the Department of Health database on Sunday, 4,960 were positive for COVID-19, meaning a positivity rate of 8.89%. Health officials regard the spread of the virus under control so long as that rate remains below 10%. It was 6.13% when only new cases among Florida residents were accounted for.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the federal level remain concerned about the Florida presence of mutated coronavirus. In its own national report on variants, updated on Sunday evening, the CDC says Florida has seen 738 cases of the B.1.1.7 strain first detected in the United Kingdom. That’s more than any other state and about 16% of the 4,690 known cases in the U.S.
There has also been an increase in other strains. The P.1 variant first seen in Brazil has shown up now in 13 Florida patients. There have also been two known cases in Florida of the P.1.351 variant that surfaced first in South Africa.
But on a more positive note, Florida officials report more than 6.5 million doses of vaccine have been administered in Florida.
A total of 4,252,250 individuals so far received at least one shot of vaccine. That includes 90,552 who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and 2,279,646 who have now been fully vaccinated with the two-shot Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Another 1,882,052 had just the first dose of Moderna or Pfizer and await a second shot.
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.
