This weekend was full of milestone numbers across the world and here at home. More than 7 million diagnosed cases and 400,000 deaths worldwide. More than two million of those cases in the United States. But more important than just citing numbers, what’s going on right now and closest to home. Florida, we might have a problem.
After averaging around 700 newly diagnosed cases daily in Florida in recent weeks, we’ve had a spike in cases that appears to be a new trend. We’ve averaged about 1,300 new cases per day over the past five days, a near doubling over what we’d seen previously. Right now in Florida, we have 63,938 cases and 2,703 deaths. The past five days have also been the five worst days for new cases since the pandemic began. There’s no one thing we can point to as the catalyst, however, we’re seeing rapid growth in specific hot spots in Broward, Collier, Hendry, Martin, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach Counties. It’s interesting that there’s not a hot spot anywhere north of Martin County in the state. This seems to dispel the hope that heat and humidity alone might do the trick to eliminate the threat of the virus.
In the United States, there are 2,007,449 cases, 112,469 deaths, and 761,708 recoveries. With over 110,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19, it is the deadliest virus in the United States since the 1918 pandemic which killed an estimated 500,000 people.
Despite the most recent news, Florida continues to outperform the country. The overall positive test rate in Florida dropped to a new low of 5.3%, less than half of the peak rate 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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