Florida identified 4,198 new coronavirus cases Thursday, the fourth time that one-day increase has surpassed 4,000 in the last week.
That hasn’t happened in more than two months. But the raw-number increases over the last two days are attributable to more testing, not greater prevalence of the virus among those being tested over those two days.
CORONAVIRUS LATEST
With the new COVID-19 cases, Florida's total rose to 794,624, according to the daily report from the state's department of health.
The positivity rate for new cases fell to 4.90% in Thursday's report, down from 6.29% reported in Tuesday's report. And the share of all tests coming back positive has also dropped from 7.77% in Tuesday's report to 6.03% in Thursday's report.
Taken over seven days, both rates are little changed over the last week, at about 6% for all tests and 4.8% for new cases, which excludes results from those who previously tested positive.
One statistic showing signs of an uptick for the first time in a while in Florida is hospitalizations. The state on Thursday reported an increase of 289 patients who tested positive for the virus, boosting the seven-day average increase to 178 patients, the highest for that metric in six weeks.
Another 77 Florida residents were confirmed dead from COVID-related causes, most of whom died two or more weeks ago. That pushed Florida's virus-related death toll among residents to 16,648, with another 206 non-resident deaths confirmed in the state to-date.
In South Florida, Broward County had a total of 85,449 COVID-19 cases, an increase of 466 since Wednesday, along with 1,522 deaths, two more than in Wednesday's report.
Broward’s positivity rate over the last week has risen to 5%, the highest in more than two months.
In Miami-Dade County, there were 184,669 COVID-19 cases reported, a daily increase of 673, along with 3,634 deaths, an increase of nine since Wednesday.
Miami-Dade’s new case rate has exceeded 5% for four straight days, but when examined over seven days it stands just over 4%, lower than it was one week ago.
Palm Beach County had 51,779 cases and 1,580 virus-related deaths Thursday, while Monroe County had 2,269 cases and 25 deaths.
