MIAMI — Florida again broke its record for the highest single-day number of COVID-19 cases Thursday, adding 19,816 new cases as the state’s death toll surpassed 22,400.
The previous single-day record since the pandemic began was 17,783 cases on Wednesday.
Thursday’s report by the Florida Department of Health of nearly 20,000 cases brought the state’s known total of COVID-19 cases to 1,429,722, the third-highest in the country, after California and Texas, according to The New York Times database of U.S. cases.
Also, 164 new resident deaths were announced, bringing the state’s resident death toll to 22,481. Six new nonresident deaths were also announced, bringing the nonresident toll to 336.
The total COVID-19 deaths recorded in the state as of Thursday were 22,817, the fourth-highest in the country, after New York, Texas and California, according to the Times database.
Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in South Florida:
—Miami-Dade County reported 3,373 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 37 new deaths, according to Florida’s Department of Health. The county has a total of 318,115 confirmed cases and 4,297 deaths, the most in the state.
—Broward County reported 1,611 additional confirmed cases and seven new deaths. The county now has a known total of 146,201 cases and 1,897 deaths.
—Palm Beach County saw 1,169 additional confirmed cases and 10 new deaths. The county now has 88,852 confirmed cases and 1,933 deaths.
—Monroe County confirmed 102 additional cases and one new death. The county has a known total of 4,529 cases and 36 deaths.
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 1:47 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, there were 7,335 COVID-19 patients admitted into hospitals throughout the state, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration dashboard. This number is at mid-August levels, when more than 7,000 COVID-19 patients were admitted daily into hospitals throughout the state.
Of Thursday’s hospitalizations, 1,031 were in Miami-Dade, 583 in Broward, 430 in Palm Beach and two in Monroe, according to the agency.
