The day after CDC Director Robert Redfield was cited by the Washington Post as saying a second round of COVID-19 could return this fall and be worse than what we’ve been experiencing, he took the opportunity at the daily Task Force briefing to clarify his comments. He said he didn’t mean to imply that the virus would be worse but rather the situation more difficult as the healthcare system would be battling two viruses, the traditional flu and COVID-19, at the same time. He reiterated the importance of obtaining a flu shot as early as it’s available for the next flu season to attempt to minimize the impact of the traditional flu.
Meanwhile, at the same briefing, President Trump stated he doesn’t support Georgia’s plan for reopening the state which begins tomorrow. He stated he’s talked to the governor and thinks it’s too early to open many of the businesses being green-lighted in the state. Also, a new study of 5,700 New York coronavirus hospitalizations revealed the average age of those hospitalized was 63 and 94% of the patients had preexisting conditions, most commonly hypertension.
As of now, there are 2,645,784 cases, 184,326 deaths,and 723,196 recoveries worldwide. In the US, there are 849,092 cases, 47,681 deaths, and 84,050 recoveries. While in Florida, we have 28,576 cases and 927 deaths. The specific Florida recoveries aren’t disclosed.
We’ve experienced over 80,000 additional diagnosed cases and over 6,500 deaths worldwide on Wednesday. Those figures were both a bit lower than the previous day’s totals. In the United States, we had nearly 30,000 new cases and more than 2,300 deaths. The newly diagnosed case count was higher, while the death toll was lower than on Tuesday. For the month of April, COVID-19 remains the top estimated cause of death in the United States.
We’ve had 707 new cases and 60 deaths in Florida attributed to the coronavirus over the past day. That’s a significant improvement in newly diagnosed cases, however, Florida saw an increase in deaths attributed to the virus on Wednesday. Yesterday’s new case count is about 500 fewer than last Thursday and the peak for cases in our state remains April 3rd. This week, I started tracking Florida’s performance against President Trump’s 3-Phase plan for reopening the country. It continues to show the probability for us to be on track for a potential phase-1 reopening in early May.
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: 4,254
- Miami-Dade: 10,289
- Palm Beach: 2,413
While the overall positive test rate in Florida had been on a steady decline over the past week, dropping from a high of 11% to 9.6%, we did have an increase Wednesday that currently places us at 9.8%. This is important for two key reasons. An increase in positive test rates is often an indication of new hot spots and a two-week decline in the metric is also one of the three guidelines outlined by President Trump for a phase 1 reopening. It’s unclear if this setback resets the clock for two-weeks. As a reminder, the further into testing we go, 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, safer-at-home declarations, and wearing masks in public.
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