Florida added more than 8,500 new confirmed COVID-19 cases Tuesday, as the state's virus-related death toll rose by over 70.
The 8,555 new COVID-19 cases brought Florida's total to 953,300, according to the daily report from the state's department of health.
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The number of new COVID cases reported each day in Florida has increased by about 50% over the last 12 days, but that is largely due to more testing — as the share of tests producing new positive results has fallen slightly, to less than 7.5% for the week ending Monday.
Hospitals are seeing an increase in patients with the virus, averaging more than 200 new patients a day for the last 10 days. That is a trend not seen since before Labor Day, but still far below the peaks in August when more than 600 new patients were being reported on some days.
With 72 more virus-related deaths among Florida residents, the total rose to 18,157 Tuesday. Another 226 non-resident deaths have been confirmed in the state to-date, one more than in Monday's report.
Deaths may have occurred days or weeks earlier, due to the time it takes to confirm they are coronavirus-related.
Newly confirmed COVID-related deaths of residents are also showing a slight increase, averaging 73 a day over the last week, the highest in a month. Because of delays in confirming the deaths, most of them are recorded a week or longer after they occurred.
The positivity rate for new cases in the state was 7.47% in Tuesday's report, a slight increase from Monday's 7.02%.
The positivity rate for all cases, including people who have already been tested, was 9.20% in Tuesday's report, snapping a fifth stretch where it stayed below 9%.
In South Florida, Miami-Dade County had 218,294 cases Tuesday, an increase of 1,852 since Monday, along with 3,789 COVID-related deaths, 7 more than in Monday's report.
In Broward County, there were 102,638 COVID-19 cases reported, a daily increase of 891, along with 1,630 virus-related deaths, one more than in Monday's report.
Palm Beach County had 62,697 cases and 1,663 virus-related deaths Tuesday, while Monroe County had 3,157 cases and 27 deaths.
After rising rapidly earlier this month, positivity rates in Miami-Dade and Broward have fallen slightly in the last week. The seven-day averages have dropped by about a full percentage point in each county for the last week, to 8% in Miami-Dade and 7.2% in Broward.
