FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida reported one of the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases in months on Monday, as trends continued to be favorable in the fight against the disease.
Florida reported 2,826 new coronavirus cases on Monday and another 93 new resident deaths linked to COVID-19. The state has now reported 1,979,634 cases since the pandemic began.
The lowest count before this was 1,700 on March 1, and after that, Florida hasn’t seen such a low daily number since October. The seven-day average for new cases has been declining since Jan. 8.
SOUTH FLORIDA
South Florida reported 2,354 new cases.
Palm Beach County: 196 additional cases and 23 more deaths. The county now has 126,062 confirmed cases and 2,615 deaths, including 46 non-residents.
Broward County: 415 additional cases and 2 more deaths. Broward has a known total of 204,247 cases and 2,592 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. The death tally includes 43 non-residents.
Miami-Dade County: 700 additional cases and 9 new deaths. The county now has 427,600 confirmed cases and 5,710 deaths, including 41 non-residents.
TESTING AND POSITIVITY
Public health experts say the virus is considered under control when the COVID-19 test positivity rate is under 5%. But since Oct. 29, Florida has exceeded 5% in its widely publicized calculation for assessing the rate for testing of residents.
The state reported a daily positivity rate of 6.13% on Monday, up from 5.69% the day before. This method of calculating positivity counts new infections only, but also counts repeat negative tests, which skews the figure downward.
According to the state, the new reported case numbers reflect the results of 46,871 COVID-19 tests of Florida residents received from labs in the past day, down from 66,725 results reported the day before.
Palm Beach County: Test results for 2,923 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 6.67%. That's down from 6.68% the previous day.
Broward County: Test results for 6,075 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 7.09%. That's up from 5.82% the previous day.
Miami-Dade County: Test results for 12,405 residents were reported Monday, leading to a daily positivity rate of 5.87%. That's up from 5.79% the previous day.
DEATHS
The state’s pandemic data report shows a total of 32,348 Floridians have died from COVID-19. In addition, 611 non-residents have died after contracting the virus. Most of the fatalities reported Monday happened over several weeks but were just confirmed in the past day.
Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida ranks No. 24 for deaths per 100,000 residents and No. 20 for cases per 100,000 residents, according to the latest data from the health department and the COVID Tracking Project.
HOSPITALIZATIONS
As of Monday, there were 3,027 people hospitalized in Florida with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
In South Florida, Broward County reported 440, Palm Beach County had 178 and Miami-Dade had 613.
Hospitalizations hit a peak in late July of about 9,500 patients statewide, then dipped as low as 2,011 on Oct. 19. The numbers steadily increased throughout November and December.
VACCINES
In Florida, 1,880,820 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, or about 8.76% of the population.
So far, 2,323,366 people have completed the series of doses required to be vaccinated. That represents about 10.82% of the population.
