The news continued to improve on Monday with at least 41 states in some form of phase one reopening. The United States had the fewest new diagnosed cases of COVID-19 since March 26th. There continues to be ample evidence that states are able to begin to reopen while simultaneously reducing the spread of the virus while increasing testing. This is encouraging as 64 of Florida’s 67 counties are now eight full days into reopening with the addition of Palm Beach County yesterday. It appears Monday is still a target day for Broward and Miami-Dade. Outside of the United States, Russia now third in total cases, along with Brazil continue to be the areas of greatest growth and concern.
Right now, worldwide, we have 4,268,496 cases, 287,463 deaths, and 1,533,701 recoveries. In the United States, there are 1,385,834 cases, 81,795 deaths, 262,225 recoveries. In Florida, we have 40,596 cases and 1,721 deaths.
In Florida, we had 386 newly diagnosed cases and 14 deaths over the past day. These totals continue to pace near the lowest levels recorded in the state since testing began. Florida remains 8th in the country in total cases and 10th in deaths. Florida’s performing far better than most states on a relative basis. We’ve also tested more aggressively than most states, with only New York having tested more than Florida. More than half of all of Florida’s cases remain in the tri-county area with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach having the most cases in the state in that order.
The overall positive test rate in Florida continued to improve Monday dropping to yet another new low of 7.3% from the peak of 11%. As a reminder, the newest diagnosed cases are new cases obtained through community spread. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and wearing masks in public.
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