Kelly Hayes
The Sunshine State hit a not-so-sunny milestone on Saturday, recording 2 million cases since the start of the pandemic.
That’s right — the state has tallied 2,004,362 cases of COVID-19 since the virus began spreading around this time last year. The number encompasses 1,967,372 Floridians and 36,990 non-Florida residents who have at one point tested positive for coronavirus in the state.
Florida confirmed reaching 2 million cases in the state’s Department of Health report released Saturday, but actually recorded the numbers that brought it over the edge on Friday, when the state added 5,040 new cases of COVID-19.
The most recent report also shows 64 new deaths attributed to the virus, including 62 Floridians and two non-residents, as well as 192 additional hospitalizations. The virus has so far taken the lives of 33,337 individuals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also reporting an uptick in mutated virus strains in Florida cases. Florida continues to report the highest number of infections of the B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in the U.K., with 882 of the 5,567 known cases nationwide occurring in the Sunshine State.
Florida also has detected 21 of 48 known cases of the P.1 strain that first surfaced in Brazil, far more than any other state.
The state confirmed a positivity rate of 7.08% on Friday, with the positivity rate of new cases being just 5.29%. Health officials consider the spread of the virus contained as long as positivity rates stay below 10%.
The state has come a long way since last year — Florida’s first two reported cases were found back on March 1, 2020, which included residents of Hillsborough and Manatee counties. That same day, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order directing state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees to declare a public health emergency in an effort to mitigate the spread.
Now, the state has vaccinated 4,819,429 individuals. Of those who have received a shot, 2,674,975 are fully vaccinated, having either completed a two-dose series or received the one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
On Friday alone, 65,629 individuals across the state got 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 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.
