This daily update is designed to put everything into perspective with straight-forward facts. Wednesday was another day focused on the battle in Washington over relief for individuals and businesses due to the virus. Last night the Senate passed a $2 trillion bill which is near equitably split between relief for individuals and businesses. The bill goes to the House which is expected to vote no later than Friday. President Trump is supportive and will sign it into law should the House pass it.
Wednesday brought about the 1,000th death attributed to the virus in the US as we’re likely to soon pass Italy in total cases. In more promising news, China has now only reported six new cases over the past 48 hours. Questions remain about the validity of these numbers but if even somewhat true, it's great progress and news. One of the other bright spots on the horizon is the recent FDA approval of a new test that can produce results in as few as 45 minutes. The new tests are set to begin shipping nationwide starting Friday.
In Florida, right now there are 1,977 instate cases, 23 deaths, and 5 recovered. In the US, there are 68,489 cases, 1,032 deaths, and 394 recovered. Around the world, there are 472,907 cases, 21,315 deaths, and 114,775 recovered.
We experienced nearly 50,000 additional cases worldwide on Wednesday, with around 14,000 new cases in the US and 248 additional deaths. The United States remains 3rd in the world in total cases, behind China and Italy. The most disconcerting aspect of the virus at this point remains the death/recovery rate based on closed cases. We have nearly double the deaths to recoveries in the US thus far and worldwide the death rate has spiked to 16%. We’ve seen the death rate rise as the reach of the virus grows.
Wednesday brought 510 new cases in Florida as the virus is now present in all 67 counties. As of this entry, there are 1,977 total in-state cases. We also had three additional deaths attributed to COVID-19. There were big jumps throughout the tri-county area with greater than 100 news cases diagnosed in both Broward and Miami-Dade. Still, Florida ranks just 6th nationally in total cases, despite having the 3rd largest population, this indicates that we’re faring better than most states on a relative basis. This is also noteworthy as many Democrats, including Joe Biden, have increasingly attempted to politicize the virus response in Florida. Every state ahead of Florida in cases, four of which are considerably smaller than Florida, happen to be run by Democrats, yet the same criticisms or concerns haven’t been offered up in those instances.
The range in age for positive tests in our state ranges from 2 to 96. 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: 412
- Miami-Dade: 491
- Palm Beach: 141
We continue to see a high rate of positive test results in Florida. To date, 8% of all tests for COVID-19 have come back positive. That’s down from 20% last week, which is improved news. Still, it remains much higher than the guidance provided by the Coronavirus Task Force of 1%-4% worldwide. This would seem to suggest many Floridians had the virus and are just being documented and not necessarily an indication of greater spread. There are 1,581 outstanding tests awaiting results, the most of any day yet, expect these numbers to continue to increase today.
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