With Christmas Eve right around the corner, several people across South Florida are getting tested for COVID-19. Chopper 6 was over the scene at various testing sites across the region while concerns about the omicron variant continue to rise. At a news conference Wednesday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said testing sites would be expanding, and stressed the importance of vaccinations to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Florida's daily COVID-19 cases surged to over 20,000 on Tuesday, the most in one day in the state since Sept. 1 and a massive increase from less than 10 days ago.
The 20,194 new cases pushed Florida's total to more than 3,799,000 since the pandemic began last year, according to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The cases are nearly 7,300 more than were reported in the state the previous day.
Florida reported less than 2,000 new daily infections throughout most of November and had reported under 2,000 cases as recently as Dec. 12. Since then, cases have been steadily climbing to numbers not seen since this past summer's delta surge.
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Experts say the case increase is a result of the fast-spreading omicron variant. Testing has also gone up in recent days ahead of the holidays.
Florida's COVID-19 related death toll was 62,264 as of Tuesday. It often takes days or weeks to report virus-related deaths.
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