This daily update is designed to put everything into perspective with straight-forward facts. Thursday marked the one millionth diagnosed case and 50-thousandth death worldwide. The US now has more than double the diagnosed cases of any other country in the world. It’s worth noting the US has tested the most of any country and only China and India have larger populations, plus the data aren’t trustworthy from China, so it’s relative but real nonetheless. New York’s case count continued to spiral higher leading the country. In fact, only Spain and Italy have higher country counts than New York now.
As of this entry, there are 9,008 cases and 144 deaths in Florida. In the US, there are 245,373 cases, 6,095 deaths, and 10,403 recovered. Around the world, there are 1,017,567 cases, 53,249 deaths, and 213,217 recovered.
We experienced more than 79k additional cases worldwide on Thursday with more than 30k new cases in the US and 983 deaths. The most disconcerting aspect of the virus remains the death/recovery rate based on closed cases. The death rate rose to 20% worldwide. This after having reached a low of 6% a month ago.
In Florida, we had 1,235 new cases and 43 deaths over the past day. If you’re looking for silver linings, Florida remains 5th in the country in total cases and 9th in deaths despite being the third most populous state. We’re performing far better than most states on a relative basis. Thursday brought Holland America’s Zaandam and Rotterdam into Port Everglades with sick passengers taken to Broward Health in Fort Lauderdale and Larkin Community Hospital in Miami. There were 49 Floridians aboard the Zaandam.
The range in age for positive tests in our state ranges from an infant to 101. More than half of all of Florida’s cases currently are in the tri-county area with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach having the most cases in the state in that order.
- Broward: 1,481
- Miami-Dade: 2,886
- Palm Beach: 737
We continue to see a high rate of positive test results in Florida. To date as 11% of all tests for COVID-19 have come back positive. That’s up slightly again over the past day which seems to indicate that community spread is occurring. The further into testing we go the more likely the newest diagnosed cases are new cases, especially with the positive test rate heading higher. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and safer-at-home declarations. The highest concentration of cases is coming from those between the ages of 45-54.
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