MIAMI — Florida's Department of Health on Thursday confirmed 5,557 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state's known total to 768,091. Also, 57 resident deaths were announced, bringing the resident death toll to 16,267.
The state reported no new nonresident deaths, leaving the nonresident toll at 203.
The total cases' figure is the highest single-day count since Aug. 15 when 6,352 were reported. Since then, only Sept. 1 and Oct. 11 had higher reported numbers because of a "data dump" in the former and a combination of two days' worth of numbers due to a technical issue last Sunday.
One of the tools officials rely on to determine whether the coronavirus situation is improving in the state is hospitalization data. Unlike testing, which might be limited or take 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 11:30 a.m. EDT Thursday, there were 2,070 COVID-19 patients admitted into hospitals throughout the state, 55 fewer than Wednesday evening, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration dashboard. This is still a significant decrease from early August, when more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients were admitted into hospitals throughout the state.
Of Thursday's hospitalizations, there were 274 in Miami-Dade, a rise of one compared to Wednesday evening; 185 in Broward, a decline of 24; 114 in Palm Beach, a rise of two; and four in Monroe, a drop of four, according to the agency.
Florida's current hospitalization data does not always match the hospitalization data reported in Miami-Dade's "New Normal" dashboard. Officials say this could be for a number of reasons, including the frequency of daily updates.
The state has had a total of 47,765 Florida residents hospitalized for COVID-19-related complications, according to Florida's COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus's progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
Epidemiologists then 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 if it means there's increased transmission of the virus in the community.
On Thursday, Florida's Department of Health reported the results of 97,984 people tested on Wednesday. The positivity rate of new cases (people who tested positive for the first time) decreased from 6.72% to 5.6%.
