Jacob Ogles
Florida continues to report more than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, but in its daily report Wednesday tallied just 31 additional deaths.
The Department of Health’s latest report shows the total caseload in Florida, dating back to the coronavirus fist surfacing here last March, has grown to 2,021,656 positive tests for COVID-19. That’s an increase of 5,143 cases over a 24-hour period.
The total number includes 1,984,274 Florida residents as well as 37,382 out-of-state residents who tested positive while here.
Meanwhile, the human toll of the virus in Florida has grown to 33,480 pandemic-related deaths. The state says 32,850 Florida residents died before recovering from the virus, as did 630 who lived elsewhere but ultimately died here
Florida on Tuesday added results from 95,370 COVID-19 tests to its database. Of those, 7,593 came back positive, or 7.37%. The positivity rate with only new cases among Florida residents was just 6%. Health officials consider the spread of the virus under control if that number remains below 10%.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also updated its reporting on variant strains in the country. Of the 7,501 known cases nationwide of the B.1.1.7 mutated virus, 1,042 were found in Florida patients. That strain, first discovered in the United Kingdom, remains the most prevalent in the U.S.
But Florida also leads all other states in cases of the P.1 variant first discovered in South America; 23 of the 61 U.S. cases are in the Sunshine State.
Of 219 national cases of the South Africa-originated B.1.351 mutation, 10 are in Florida.
On a more positive note, the state has vaccinated far more people than were ever infected. A total of 5,205,239 individuals have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, health officials report as of midday Wednesday. That’s 147,300 more than the prior day.
Of those, 186,836 had the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and another 2,666,831 have been fully vaccinated with two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.
Another 2,351,572 have received a first dose of Pfizer or Moderna and await a booster 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.
