We entered the week with news of the potential peak/flattening of the curve being possible. Wednesday brought additional optimism that we’re closer to the end of the outbreak than the beginning. President Trump said the United States has “passed the peak” of the outbreak. Today is the day the University of Washington modeling suggested we would beat the peak in the United States. Should that prove to be the case, it’s likely we will begin to see aspects of the US economy open up in May with the potential for life in the new normal by June.
Worldwide, there are 2,088,240 cases, 134,720 deaths, and 515,854 recoveries. In the US, we have 644,348 cases, 28,554 deaths, and 48,708 recoveries. Now, in Florida, we have 22,519 cases and 614 deaths.
We experienced nearly 80,000 additional diagnosed cases and over 7,900 deaths worldwide Wednesday. Both new highs within a day for the second consecutive day. In the United States, we had over 30,000 new cases and greater than 5,000 deaths, making Wednesday the deadliest day for the virus in the US. This as New York added nearly 3,000 additional deaths attributed to COVID-19 beyond the previous reporting. The state said a review of the cause of death revealed those individuals had died from the virus prior to having been tested. The question, to President Trump’s declaration of a potential peak, is if yesterday was as bad as it would become in a single day in this country. Let’s hope so. For the month of April, COVID-19 has been the top cause of death in the United States.
We had 891 new cases and 43 deaths in Florida due coronavirus on Wednesday. Overall new diagnosed cases were higher Wednesday than Tuesday but otherwise lower than all other days in April. Hopefully, this is part of a trend towards lower overall diagnosed cases and not a building of new cases within our state. Wednesday brought news of three Hospital systems in Florida participating in the Trump administration’s recently announced Dynamic Ventilator Reserve program. The new program creates a federal reserve of ventilators and deploys them across the country to areas of need in the time of a critical shortage. Participating hospitals will contribute unused medical supplies to the reserve and virtual inventories of critical health equipment will be managed by the hospitals in partnership with FEMA and the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Overall hospitalizations are now at their highest levels in Florida, with 3,249 COVID-19 patients currently being served. Florida remained 8th in the country in total cases and 10th in deaths. Florida is the third-most populous state. We’re performing far better than most states on a relative basis. We’re also testing more aggressively than most states, adjusted for population, making the performance of our state even more impressive. 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: 3,363
- Miami-Dade: 8,063
- Palm Beach: 1,816
We continue to see a high rate of positive test results in Florida. To date, nearly 11% of all tests for COVID-19 have come back positive. The further into testing we go, the more likely the newest diagnosed cases are new cases. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and safer-at-home declarations.
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