Florida posts lowest rate of COVID-19 cases per capita in nation

Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak concept, background with flags of the states of USA. State of Florida flag. Pandemic stop Novel Coronavirus outbreak covid-19 3D illustration.
Florida's death toll for the week is still the second highest in the nation.

Florida recorded just 12,151 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, according to the latest report from the Florida Department of Health.

By federal counts — which are slightly different from Florida’s tabulations but still in the same ballpark — the Sunshine State’s most recent tally of newly-confirmed cases now gives Florida the lowest per capita rate of new cases in the country.

Florida’s 12,115 seven-day case tally in the federal report works out to a rate of 56 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, better than all the other 49 states.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, as reported in the COVID-19 Community Profile Report, covers a week that is one day behind the week that the Florida Department of Health says in its Friday announcements. However, the federal data, which covers the week through Wednesday, can compare states, as the CDC compiles similar data from all states.

With a rate of 64 new cases per 100,000 people, Hawaii posted the nation’s second-lowest per capita rate of new cases for the week ending Wednesday. Connecticut was next-best, with 66 new cases per 100,000, according to the CDC data.

Nonetheless, Florida’s summer surge, which ran from late July through early September, remains deadly, as Florida continues to tabulate COVID-19 deaths at a rate higher than other states. Many of those deaths are for reports that occurred weeks earlier but are only now clearing the bureaucracy. Others are for Florida’s sickest patients, who lingered in hospitals from Florida’s worst days until recently dying.

At its worst, the delta variant-driven summer surge was infecting more than 150,000 Floridians a week in early- and mid-August. More than 2,000 Floridians were added to the state’s death count each week in early- and mid-September. Those were the worst periods Florida has experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and during those times, Florida had the worst case and death rates in the nation.

Florida’s case numbers have plummeted more than 90% since then. Florida’s death toll has fallen too, but not nearly as much.

Florida added 867 COVID-19 deaths to its count in the week through Thursday, according to the latest COVID-19 Weekly Situation Report released late Friday by the Florida Department of Health.

That’s down from the previous week’s total of 944 newly-recorded deaths. The new report documents the sixth consecutive week that Florida’s tally of additional COVID-19 deaths was lower than the last week. Yet the latest 8% decline in new cases was something of a leveling off, compared with 20% declines seen in many previous weeks.

Florida’s most recent weekly death toll was the second-highest in the country for the week.

Texas had 1,172 COVID-19 deaths newly recorded, according to the CDC’s report. California was third, with 702 newly-recorded deaths; Georgia, fourth, with 616; and Ohio, fifth, with 548.

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].


14 comments

  • EmeritusProf

    October 29, 2021 at 7:41 pm

    Florida’s numbers still can’t be trusted . For August the cases on a 21 day lag produced a fatality rate of 2.2% for September the fatality rate is only 1.4 %. This makes no medical sense. Either cases were undercounted in July August or deaths from September are still incomplete

    • Alex

      November 2, 2021 at 8:42 pm

      Remember when DeAnus proudly claimed we were beating locked down California?

      Now Cal has 185 deaths per 100k residents, Florida has 277.

  • Tom

    October 29, 2021 at 10:20 pm

    America’s Governor proves once again how to balance public rights and public health.

    To not be a tyrannical dictator.
    To not right a book on people’s loss.
    To not order seniors into nursing homes so they will perish.
    To not face indictment.
    Remind you of any blue state tyrant.

    • Professor Emeritus

      October 30, 2021 at 3:08 am

      Kill 17000 people in two months In the same two months New York had 1790 deaths on a population equivalent basis De SANTIS killed at 9 times the rate of New York
      over 15,000 Floridians died so you could praise DeSantis?

      What kind of person are you? the dead don’t count?

      • Fakke Offe

        November 2, 2021 at 12:36 pm

        Floridas COVID death rate is 1.63%, compared to NYs 2.11%

        Who’s killing who?

        #letsgobrandon

        • Alex

          November 2, 2021 at 8:48 pm

          Of the top seven deadliest states to live in, 5 are red.

          • Evie

            November 6, 2021 at 6:29 pm

            freedom over safety. don’t agree? take personal responsibility and do what you have to do to keep yourself safe.

  • Professor Emeritus

    October 30, 2021 at 3:48 am

    Im in Germany where vaccine cards are carried everywhere mask are universal and deaths in August and Septermber totaled 25 per million Florida under de Santis had 809 per million New York had 106 per million
    De Santis and Florida are the biggest killers in the vaccinated world (all figures form worldometers) and as noted elsewhere Florida’s Septermber death numbers are incomplete

  • Professor Emeritus

    October 30, 2021 at 4:26 am

    Florida does fewer tests that other states so its data is less reliable New York does 3 times as many tests per capita
    fewer tests fewer cases

    • Tom

      October 30, 2021 at 4:52 pm

      You want tyrannical rule period.
      Florida pop. is larger than New York.
      Stay in Germany.
      New York State suffered earlier, pop. Covid caught up in Florida.
      This liberal mythology to blame the Gov won’t work.

      • whoskins

        November 2, 2021 at 1:04 am

        Death is the final tyrant, should use commonsense & temporary mandates to crush the virus instead encouraging the spread of a deadly disease.

  • Len

    November 2, 2021 at 12:18 am

    Thank you!

  • Tjb

    November 2, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    What specific actions or policies has DeSantis implemented to lower the spread of COVID-19? He did addressed the nursing home situation —- similar to what most states did immediately with the advent of COVID-19. But I can not find additional information on other actions or policies that he initiated to prevent the spread of Covid 19.

    • Alex

      November 2, 2021 at 9:05 pm

      He jabbered a lot about some freedoms he can’t name, and did everything in his power to do nothing.

      Now Florida is one of the worst states for preventable deaths.

Comments are closed.


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