MIAMI _ Florida's Department of Health on Friday confirmed 928 additional cases of COVID-19, pushing the state's total of confirmed cases to 44,138. There were also 42 new deaths announced, raising the statewide death toll to 1,917.
Less than half of the new cases and deaths were in South Florida:
_ Miami-Dade County reported 269 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 13 new deaths. The county's known total is now at 15,011 with 548 deaths, the highest in the state.
_Broward County reported 76 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and five new deaths. The county's confirmed total is now at 6,133 with 272 deaths.
_Palm Beach County saw 113 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and eight new deaths. The county's known total is now at 4,391. The death toll is at 271.
_Monroe County did not report any additional cases or deaths. The Florida Keys have 95 known cases and three deaths.
Here's a breakdown on what you need to know:
More than half of the state's known COVID-19 cases are in South Florida's four counties: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe. Miami-Dade continues to lead the state with the most confirmed cases and deaths. It has 15,011 known cases and 548 deaths.
Despite the daily reports of new cases and deaths, local and state officials have previously said that decreases in the daily total of reported cases are signs that social-distancing measures are working.
Officials are also relying on hospitalization data. Unlike testing, which might be limited or take days to report results, hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time visual of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
The health department says it doesn't "have a figure" to reflect the number of people currently hospitalized and only provides the total number of hospitalizations in its statewide and county-level data. But hospitals in Miami-Dade are self-reporting a number of key metrics, including hospitalizations, to the county. Some provide updates every day and others don't.
The state saw 210 more hospitalizations since Thursday morning, bringing the state's hospitalization total to 7,959.
And because scientists are still working to learn more about the virus, including how many people in the community are actually infected with the disease and have mild or no symptoms, it's difficult to determine what percentage of the cases hospitalizations represent.
It's official. Select businesses across Miami-Dade and Broward County will have a limited reopening Monday, with restaurants in many areas once again allowed to offer dine-in-services. All businesses will have new regulations in place, including social distancing era rules both customers and employees will have to follow until life eventually returns to a "new normal."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his approval of the two counties' reopening plans during a Thursday news conference in Doral. The two South Florida counties were the last in the state to be approved to begin the reopening process.
Testing in Florida has seen a steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began and has begun to see a steady decline in the percentage of people testing positive.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus' progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
The recommended numbers of daily tests needed varies by experts, but the dean of the University of South Florida's College of Medicine told the governor Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.
Florida reached the recommended mark for the first time on May 2 and has since seen its daily testing numbers either surpass or be below the mark by several thousand. On Thursday, the daily total of new tests fell short of the mark for the first time since Mother's Day with 29,258 new tests reported.
On Friday, new tests shot back up and past the mark, with 34,417 new tests reported.
The state is also expected to see a decline in its daily testing numbers _ and a drop in its daily total of newly confirmed cases _ for the next few days as officials close 14 state-run COVID-19 test sites Friday and through the weekend because of a disturbance that is predicted to stay at sea but send wet and windy weather to South Florida. The sites will reopen Monday.
As of Thursday, a total of 609,574 tests have been conducted. Of those, 43,210 were positive, or 7.09%. The state says there are 1,228 pending tests. Friday's testing numbers were not immediately available.
But health experts told The Miami Herald last month they were concerned the number of pending COVID-19 tests listed by the state is an undercount because Florida reports only the number of Floridians waiting to get test results from state labs, not private ones _ and private labs are completing more than 90% of state tests.
Previously, it's taken as long as two weeks for the results of pending tests from private labs to be added into the state's official count, making it difficult for officials to project the size and scale of the pandemic in the state. It's unclear how quickly results are currently being sent to the state from private labs.
