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Florida continued to make meaningful progress in reducing new COVID-19 cases on Thursday. There were 6,271 new cases were reported. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 statewide now stand at 7,556 patients, that's 289 fewer over the past day and the lowest total hospitalizations for the virus in exactly two months.
In other news, Governor DeSantis announced the state will begin to receive GlaxoSmithKline’s new monoclonal antibody treatments to augment the Regeneron treatments which have been available statewide. DeSantis announced last week that he was actively engaging with Glaxo to bring additional COVID-cocktails to our state to replace the reduction in treatments Florida has begun to receive as a result of the Biden administration reducing Florida’s available treatments by about half. The initial shipment from Glaxo will include 3,000 treatments.
Lastly, the Biden administration announced they’re awarding the Alachua School District $147,719, which is a sum equal to the amount the state withheld from the district as a result of their school mask mandate policy without a parental opt-out. The federal award is the first of its kind in the country and is consistent with what President Biden had previously indicated he’d do when Governor DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced sanctions against the district. Notably, Broward school district was sanctioned at the same time as Alachua’s, thus it’s likely Broward may see a similar award soon.