State records another 1,719 COVID-19 fatalities while cases plummet
Image via AP.

coronavirus hospital
Florida's summer surge resulted in 16,000 COVID-19 deaths recorded since July 30.

The grim toll of Florida’s summer surge of COVID-19 continues to mount as state officials on Friday reported another 1,719 deaths attributed to the virus.

The Florida Department of Health released its latest COVID-19 Weekly Situation Report showing the state’s pandemic death toll reaching 55,299 since the pandemic began in March 2020. That total indicates another 1,719 deaths registered in the past seven days.

Before this summer, Florida had never reported as many as 1,300 new COIVID-19 deaths in a single week. With Friday’s announcement, Florida exceeded that level for seven consecutive weekly reports.

The latest release shows that Florida reached16,220 deaths since the end of July. That means for that stretch, there was an average of more than 250 fatalities per day. That chronicles Florida’s most dire news of the 2021 summer surge’s worst period, driven by the emergence of the more infectious delta variant.

Almost 30% of all official COVID-19 deaths in Florida during the 19-month pandemic have been counted just in the past nine weeks.

Florida’s more immediate trends are hopeful, however, according to Friday’s report. The update showed a sharp drop from the 2,000-plus COVID-19 fatalities recorded in each of the previous four weeks.

More dramatically, the same report showed the number of newly confirmed COVID0-19 cases fell again — dramatically — with just 37,299 tallied since the state’s previous report was issued on Sept. 24. There had been 54,109 the week before.

The statement claims the lowest weekly total of new COVID-19 cases since mid-July, confirming that the worst of the latest outbreak is long past, except for dealing with the record numbers of deaths that resulted.

Florida was posting more than 150,000 new cases per week through the last three weeks in August. September is nowhere near that number.

Friday’s report was the fifth consecutive weekly report showing significant declines in new cases.

Scott Powers

Scott Powers is an Orlando-based political journalist with 30+ years’ experience, mostly at newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel and the Columbus Dispatch. He covers local, state and federal politics and space news across much of Central Florida. His career earned numerous journalism awards for stories ranging from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to presidential elections to misplaced nuclear waste. He and his wife Connie have three grown children. Besides them, he’s into mystery and suspense books and movies, rock, blues, basketball, baseball, writing unpublished novels, and being amused. Email him at [email protected].


8 comments

  • Alex

    October 1, 2021 at 8:08 pm

    And the US is now rapidly approaching 700,000 dead, making it the most deadly pandemic in our history passing the 675,000 dead from the Spanish Flu.

    Interesting tidbit;

    Inflation just hit 4.3%, much higher than Europe (3.4%) who locked down fast and kept it up for as long as needed.

    It’s ironic DeAnus/Trump was screeching how they were saving the economy by not locking down.

    Lol

    Repubicans : Wrong again, and again.

  • Alex

    October 1, 2021 at 8:16 pm

    Oh yeah,

    In May last year Trump predicted there would be no more than 110,000 deaths.

  • Charlotte Greenbarg

    October 2, 2021 at 11:15 am

    Alex, Alex, Alex, the far left must pay you by the word! LOL

    • Alex

      October 2, 2021 at 4:08 pm

      Jealousy is such an ugly emotion sweetie.

    • Sister Elizabeth d' O'range

      October 6, 2021 at 10:21 am

      You can’t handle the numbers, can you, sweetie? You can’t wrap your squishy brain around so much death, much of which could have been avoided. Bless your heart, you’re just fucking ignorant.

  • Kiera Sinclair

    October 3, 2021 at 12:59 pm

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  • tjb

    October 4, 2021 at 11:39 am

    Florida has 6.5% of the USA population, but it has 8% of the USA Covid deaths.
    DeSantis’s Florida leads the nation in the highest percentage of Covid death.

  • Eve Gray

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Comments are closed.


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