Jacob Ogles
Florida health officials reported fewer than 3,000 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and less than 40 additional pandemic-related deaths. With more than a year under the grip of a pandemic and more than 2 million total infections, that constitutes good news in the state.
But Florida also became the first state with more than 1,000 cases of a mutated virus strain first detected in the United Kingdom.
A daily update Monday from the Department of Health showed the number of cases in the state has climbed to 2,011,211. That number, which includes all cases dating back to the first known infections on March 1, 2020, represents an increase of 2,862 since the Sunday report.
Of the total cases, 1,974,051 were among Florida residents with 37,160 cases found in out-of-state residents who tested positive while in the state.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also updated its national report on variant infections on Sunday night. That showed the number of Florida cases of the B.1.1.7 strain of the virus had now reached 1,040. That’s more than 16% of the 6,390 known cases nationwide.
Florida has also seen 21 of the 54 U.S. cases of the P.1 strain that first surfaced in Brazil, again leading the nation. There have also been nine cases of the B.1.351 mutation that was first seen in South Africa and most prominent stateside in South Carolina.
Over the course of the pandemic, Florida has reported 33,408 total deaths, including 39 deaths confirmed in Monday’s report. The deaths include 32,779 Florida residents and 629 who lived out of state but died here.
Florida recorded results from 52,893 tests for COVID-19 on Sunday, the lowest number of new entries in the past two weeks. Of those, 4,817 came back positive, or 9.11%. That’s the highest positivity rate reported any single day in the past two weeks. Health officials generally consider the spread of the virus contained if the positivity rate remains below 10%, as it has for nearly six weeks.
Meanwhile, health officials report progress in vaccinations. A total of 4,955,264 individuals have received at least one dose of vaccine, more than double the number of known infections. That’s an increase of 43,478 since Sunday’s report.
A total of 2,740,267 have been fully vaccinated, 161,308 of those with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the rest with two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Another 2,214,997 have received a 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.
