MIAMI — Florida's Department of Health on Friday confirmed 10,177 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state's known total to 1,039,207. This is the second consecutive day that that state has added more than 10,000 cases.
Also, 120 new resident deaths were announced, bringing the resident toll to 18,994. That figure represents the most deaths announced in a single day in Florida since Oct. 15 when 141 resident deaths were reported.
The cumulative nonresident death toll increased by four to 242 deaths.
Florida has the third-highest number of total confirmed cases in the country after Texas and California, according to the New York Times COVID-19 database.
One of the tools that officials rely on to determine whether the coronavirus situation is improving in the state is hospitalization data. Unlike testing, which might be limited or takes days to report results, hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time snapshot of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reports the number of patients hospitalized statewide with a "primary diagnosis of COVID." The data, which is updated at least every hour, does not distinguish between the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital intensive care units and those in acute-care beds, which require less attention from nurses.
Previously, the state was providing only the total number of hospitalizations in its statewide and county-level data. Miami-Dade was an exception, with hospitals self-reporting a number of key metrics, including hospitalizations, to the county, which has made this data public for several months.
As of 12:45 p.m. Friday, there were 4,336 COVID-19 patients admitted into hospitals throughout the state, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration dashboard. This is a big jump from what the state was reporting last month and approaching early August when more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients were admitted into hospitals throughout the state.
The state has had a total of 55,820 Florida residents hospitalized for COVID-19-related complications, according to Florida's COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard.
Testing in Florida has seen steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus' progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
Epidemiologists use the testing data to create a positivity rate. The rate helps them determine if a rise in cases is because of an increase in testing or whether there's increased transmission of the virus in the community.
On Friday, Florida's Department of Health reported the results of 133,598 people tested on Thursday. The positivity rate of new cases (people who tested positive for the first time) decreased from 8.19% to 7.48%.
