MIAMI — The state of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard reported another 10,593 cases Sunday, the fifth consecutive reporting day of over 10,000 cases.
Meanwhile, current hospitalizations in the state continue to gallop toward 7,000 and the state positive test rate remained over 10%.
Though Saturday's 31,518 new case count was for two days after new cases weren't reported Friday, the average was well over 10,000 cases.
The state also reported 97 deaths Sunday, all of which were residents. For the pandemic, Florida's reporting 1,365,426 cases, 21,987 resident deaths and 22,310 overall deaths.
As for the positive test rate, it was 12.43% for the day, the second highest day of the last two weeks and fourth consecutive day over 10%.
The state's average positive test rate for the last seven days rate is 12.63%, but that's with the anomaly of 23.06% on Dec. 28, when few test results were reported. Without that, the average is 10.89%, still well above the previous seven days' average of 8.6%.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Florida
Miami-Dade County reported 1,547 more people who tested positive and 12 more COVID-19 deaths, putting its pandemic totals at 305,734 cases and 4,251 deaths. The positive test rate on Saturday was 13.06%. For the week, the state's county-by-county breakdown says the average daily positive test rate rose from 8.34% for Dec. 20 through Dec. 26 to 12.00% for Dec. 27 through Saturday (8.54% without the Dec. 28 outlier).
— Broward County reported another 1,000 cases and 10 deaths, moving its totals to 141,110 cases and 1,872 deaths. Broward's average daily positive test rate climbed from 6.65% for Dec. 20 through Dec. 26 to 10.96% for Dec. 27 through Saturday (8.72% without the Dec. 28 outlier). The positive test rate was 10.42% on Saturday.
— Palm Beach County reported 507 new cases (85,479 for the pandemic) and one death (1,909). And the average daily positive test rate soared to 10.42% for the last seven days (8.86% without the Dec. 28 outlier) from 6.93% for the previous seven days. Saturday's positive rate was 7.58%
— Monroe County reported 17 new cases and no deaths. Pandemic totals in the Keys are 4,350 cases and 35 deaths.
COVID-19 vaccinations in South Florida
Florida is currently giving vaccines to healthcare workers, long-term care facility residents and staff, and people 65 and older, including snowbirds. Some hospitals, including in South Florida, have begun giving the vaccines to people 65 and older. Vaccination sites also opened across the state this week, with Broward set to open its first sites this weekend.
Miami-Dade County has also created a new website to help seniors, and eventually the rest of the general public, find and schedule COVID-19 vaccination appointments. The Florida Department of Health Broward County vaccine appointment website went down Wednesday and spent Sunday morning going back online and being taken offline for maintenance.
So far, Mount Sinai Medical Center has been giving vaccinations to seniors but getting an appointment via the website has been difficult. Broward Health has reached it's limit for appointments. Jackson Health is to release an online platform on Monday for seniors to try and book appointments.
According to Sunday's vaccine report, the state has given 255,808 people the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Currently the two vaccines that are available, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, require two doses. The vaccines do not give you COVID-19.
Current hospitalizations
Government officials use current hospitalizations to decide the next action in dealing with the pandemic. On the state level, this has been steadily falling over the last month.
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.
As of 12:31 p.m. Sunday, the AHCA said there were 6,962 people currently hospitalized, a jump of 261 from 5:01 p.m. Saturday and an increase of 595 from a week ago. Compared to Saturday, Miami-Dade was up 24 to 1,036; Broward was up 32 to 598; Palm Beach was up 15 to 375; and Monroe remained the same at two.
