Florida tops 5 million COVID-19 cases

Florida has now seen more than 5 million cases of COVID-19 among residents, with another 289,204 reported in the past week, according to the latest state data posted Friday.

The Sunshine State has recorded 5,280,903 confirmed cases of the coronavirus since it first emerged in March 2020. That is equal to about one in every four Floridians, though the COVID-19 total includes recurring cases of the disease suffered by some people.

Florida’s latest total includes more than a million new cases that have been tallied just in the past three weeks, since the end of 2021, as the omicron surge has overtaken Florida.

The most recent weekly total was a sharp drop from the record 429,311 cases that were recorded the week ending Jan. 14.

Yet it still was the fourth consecutive week that saw more confirmed new cases in Florida in a seven-day period than in any previous week in the 22-month COVID-19 pandemic.

Public health officials have expressed cautious hope that the latest surge is producing milder symptoms because the omicron variant is not as severe, and because more and more Floridians are vaccinated. Those shots reduce the effects among those who do get the disease.

Nonetheless, Florida is seeing its COVID-19 fatality rate spike once again. That delayed rise in fatalities is consistent with previous surges, when spikes in state-confirmed deaths totals trailed spikes in new cases by two to four weeks.

In the seven-day period through Thursday, Florida recorded 605 new COVID-19 deaths, according to the latest COVID-19 Weekly Situation Report posted by the Department of Health.

That’s up from 470 newly tallied fatalities the week before, and from 184 Floridians who were reported to have died of the disease the week before that.

The latest death toll showed the first time since early November that Florida had seen more than 500 deaths recorded in a week’s time. That early November toll came at the tail-end of the deadly part of the summer surge. Florida saw COVID-19 deaths spike to more than 2,000 reported in each of three weeks running in September, and new death totals did not fall below 1,000 again until mid-October.

Florida now has recorded 63,763 COVID-19 deaths.

As of Thursday, 73% of eligible Floridians, those ages 5 or older, had received at least one vaccination shot, or about 13 million people, according to the state’s latest report. In the past week, 208,805 Floridians received a booster, including 55,287 who got their first shot.