The news just wasn’t good on Wednesday. There were over 134,000 new cases diagnosed worldwide, making it was the highest day for new cases to date. This is being led by rapid growth in cases in Brazil, Russia but also about a dozen other countries with fewer cases including Mexico. Right now, there are 7,471,092 cases, 419,264 deaths, and 3,788,677 recoveries worldwide.
The news wasn’t much better here at home. We have 2,066,508 cases, 115,137 deaths, and 808,551 recoveries in the United States. Cases jumped back over 20,000 after three days below that threshold and in Florida, we had our third-highest day for new cases to date with 1,371 new cases. There are now 66,000 cases and 2,769 deaths. The past week has easily been the worst week for new COVID-19 cases in our state since the pandemic began. Over half of Florida’s cases remain in the tri-county with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County having the most cases in that order and Palm Beach County continues to see the biggest increase in new cases.
The overall positive test rate in Florida rose to 5.3% on Wednesday, this is the first increase in positive test rate since Florida reached a peak of 11% around five weeks ago. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and wearing masks in public. The average age of someone diagnosed with COVID-19 in Florida is 54. With over 115,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19, it is the deadliest virus in the United States since the 1918 pandemic which killed over 600,000 Americans.
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