What to Know
- On Thursday, Florida added more than 10,000 cases in its daily coronavirus update for the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak began
- The state's total tally of cases reached 169,106 while 67 new virus-related deaths brought the death toll to 3,617
- 55,088 cases have been added to Florida's tally in the last seven days; that figure represents about 33% of the state's total number of cases
Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time Thursday, a milestone that is six times higher than where the daily record stood less than a month ago.
With 10,109 new COVID-19 cases, the state’s total rose to 169,106, according to figures released by the Florida Department of Health. The state has seen a large increase in cases in the past week, with more than 55,000 confirmed in that span of time, about 33% of the state's total.
Florida also reported 67 deaths Thursday for the second time in a week, as the seven-day average for daily fatalities is now back over 40, a 30% increase from two weeks ago.
The state’s death rate peaked at 60 per day in early May, but had declined to 30 by June 1 before it began creeping up two weeks ago as case numbers began spiking.
Since March 1, the state has seen more than 169,000 confirmed cases and 3,718 deaths. Before June 11, the state’s worst day for reported cases had been 1,601, set in mid-May. That number has been eclipsed every day for the last three weeks.
CORONAVIRUS LATEST
Statewide, more than 2,033,790 people have been tested for COVID-19, with an overall percent positive of 8.3%. More than 15,100 hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been reported in Florida to-date.
The state's positivity rate, or the percentage of tests coming back positive, increased to 16.8% Thursday.
In South Florida, Miami-Dade County's case total rose by 2,304 to 40,265, and the county's virus-related deaths were at 1,018 Thursday.
In Broward County, there were 17,116 COVID-19 cases reported, along with 394 virus-related deaths.
Palm Beach County had 14,859 cases and 523 deaths. Monroe County had 296 cases and 5 reported deaths.
Later Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence and Gov. Ron DeSantis are scheduled to visit a medical training center at the University of South Florida in Tampa and meet with reporters to discuss the coronavirus situation. The visit came after Pence canceled a campaign “Faith In America” tour in Florida and other states because of recent spikes in cases.
Before the visit, Florida Democrats held a conference call criticizing the coronavirus response from the White House and DeSantis as inadequate and needlessly endangering lives by opening up too soon and declining to mandate safety measures such as wearing of masks.
“In their rush to reopen, they have put politics ahead of public health,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala, who was Health and Human Services secretary under President Bill Clinton. “Why are we in this situation? Because we didn’t do the right thing at the beginning. We needed at the beginning to hit this virus with a hammer, to starve it all the way down.”
