MIAMI — The state of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard reported 6,820 new cases Sunday, as positive test rates and current hospitalizations continued to trend upwards again.
Sunday extended Florida's run of days over 4,000 cases to eight, despite being the day of the week that usually reports the fewest cases due to less data collection and entry over the weekend. Tossing out the anomaly of the Sept. 1 Quest Diagnostics data dump, when some cases from April first got reported, this is the most cases since 8,109 on Wednesday, Aug. 12.
Another 22 deaths were reported in the state. For the novel coronavirus pandemic, Florida has seen 843,897 cases, 17,121 COVID-19 deaths of residents and 17,333 total deaths.
Sunday's case number came with a state-reported a single-day positive test rate of 6.23%, ending the week with an average daily positive test rate of 6.97%. The previous seven days, the average was 5.87%.
South Florida counties saw similar raises.
South Florida counties
— Miami-Dade County reported 1,710 more people who tested positive and one more COVID-19 deaths, putting its pandemic totals at, respectively, 194,356 cases and 3,683 deaths. The county-by-county breakdown says the average daily positive test rate leaped from 5.57% for Oct. 25 to 31, to 7.01% for Nov. 1 through Saturday.
? Broward County reported another 825 cases and three deaths, moving its totals to 90,997 cases and 1,548 deaths. Broward's average daily positive test rate increased from 5.89% for Oct. 25 through 31 to 6.58% for Nov. 1 through Saturday.
— Palm Beach County reported 447 new cases (55,449 for the pandemic), but zero deaths (1,609). And the average daily positive test rate edged up, from 6.50% last week to 6.79% this week.
— Monroe County reported 29 new cases and zero deaths. Pandemic totals in the Keys are 2,568 cases and 25 deaths.
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 10:31 a.m. Sunday, the AHCA said there were 2,753 people currently hospitalized, a fat jump of 150 from 9:30 a.m. Saturday, and up 442 from a week ago. Monroe stayed the same at 5, but Miami-Dade rose by 15 people, Broward rose by 18 and Palm Beach rose by 10.
