MIAMI _ Florida's Department of Health on Thursday morning confirmed 3,207 additional cases of COVID-19, setting the record for the highest daily total since the state began tracking.
There are now 85, 926 confirmed cases in Florida.
The state's previous daily record high in was 2, 783 on Tuesday.
There were also 43 new deaths announced Thursday, raising the statewide death toll to 3,061.
Less than half of the new deaths and cases were in South Florida:
_Miami-Dade County saw 581 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nine new deaths. The county's known total is now at 23,854. The death toll is at 859, the highest in the state.
_Broward County reported 299 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and five new deaths. The county's confirmed total is now at 10,111. The death toll is at 365.
_Palm Beach County saw 382 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and six new deaths. The county's known total is now at 9,854. The death toll is at 450.
_Monroe County reported nine additional confirmed cases of the disease and no new deaths. The Florida Keys has had a total of 146 known cases and four deaths.
Here's a breakdown on what you need to know:
More than half of the 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.
One of the tools that officials are relying on to determine if the novel 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 visual of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
The health department says it does not "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.
While Florida's Department of Health is not releasing current statewide hospitalization data to the public, hospitals in Miami-Dade are self-reporting a number of key metrics, including hospitalizations, to the county, which has made this data public. Some provide updates every day; others don't.
Ninety-five people were discharged and 87 people were admitted to Miami-Dade hospitals on Wednesday, bringing the number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 complications to 640, according to Miami-Dade County's "New Normal" dashboard data.
Scientists are also still working to learn more about the virus, including how many people in the community are infected and have mild or no symptoms, which can make it difficult to determine what percentage of the cases hospitalizations represent.
Testing in Florida has seen a steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began.
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 number of daily tests needed varies among experts, but the dean of the University of South Florida's College of Medicine told Gov. Ron DeSantis that Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.
To date, 1,512,315 persons have been tested in Florida. Of the total tested, 85,926 (about 5.68%) have tested positive. The state says there are 1,457 tests with pending results.
Health experts have previously told The Miami Herald that they were concerned the number of pending results listed by the state is an undercount. This is because Florida's Health Department only announces the number of pending test results from state labs, not private ones _ and private labs are completing more than 90% of state tests.
Previously, it has taken as long as two weeks for pending test results 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, as the turnaround time varies by lab.
