Florida reports nearly 16K COVID-19 cases in 48 hours

Alarms continue to sound in Florida after health officials reported nearly 16,000 new cases of COVID-19 over 48 hours.

A report released Wednesday shows the total number of cases in Florida had grown to 2,141,686. That’s an increase of 6,772 from numbers released Tuesday. That came after a jump of 9,098 cases from Monday to Tuesday.

In total, the state reported 15,840 new cases over two days.

The full count, which includes 2,101,365 Florida residents and 40,321 out-of-state individuals who tested positive while in Florida, covers all cases since the virus first surfaced in Florida in March 2020.

But Wednesday’s report showed the positivity rate for the first time this week had dropped below 10%, a good sign. That’s the threshold where health officials consider the spread of a virus out of control.

On Tuesday, 108,186 COVID-19 tests were processed statewide and 9,673 of those, or 8.94% came back positive. On Monday, the positivity rate was 10.46%. On Sunday, it was 10.43%.

The total number of statewide deaths in Florida, meanwhile, climbed to 34,829. That was a rise of 45 deaths overnight and a jump of 109 deaths over 48 hours. That includes 34,164 Floridians who died before recovering from the virus, as well as 665 out-of-state residents who passed away of pandemic-related causes while here.

Florida still leads the nation in two types of mutated coronavirus cases. There are 3,510 cases of the B.1.1.7 strain that first surfaced in the United Kingdom and 126 instanced of the P.1 virus discovered in Brazil. There are also 27 cases of the B.1.351 strain out of South Africa.

On a more positive note, a total of 7,584,736 individuals in Florida have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Department of Health reported Wednesday.

That includes 517,446 individuals who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine temporarily taken out of commission on Tuesday.

But the majority of users received one of two mRNA vaccines produced by Moderna or Pfizer. Those require two shots. A total of 4,161,541 have been fully vaccinated with two shots of the vaccine. Another 2,905,749 individuals had a first shot and await a second.

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.