MIAMI — Florida’s Department of Health on Saturday morning confirmed 735 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total of confirmed cases to more than 35,000.
Saturday’s daily total of 35,463 brings the number of newly confirmed cases back under 1,000, which had been a weeklong trend until Friday’s report topped out at 1,038.
There were also 50 new deaths announced, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,364 — a bump of four more than the health department had reported on Friday morning. Of those latest deaths, 18 were in South Florida.
Nine more people died in Miami-Dade, bringing the county’s death toll to 367, the highest in the state. Five more people died in Broward, raising the county’s death toll to 204. Palm Beach County reported four new deaths, bringing the county’s count to 195. Monroe had held steady at three deaths in the Florida Keys.
The number of deaths being reported by the state Department of Health may be incomplete. The list of coronavirus deaths being compiled by Florida’s medical examiners has shown the death count was up to 10% higher than what the Florida Department of Health has released.
In addition to the 18 new deaths in South Florida’s tri-county area, the other 32 people who tested positive and died from COVID-19 were in Charlotte, Clay, Escambia, Flagler, Manatee, Nassau, Orange, Pinellas, St. Lucie, Suwannee and Volusia counties.
Of the statewide total of COVID-19 confirmed cases, 34,555 are Florida residents — a rise of 726 since Friday — and 908 are non-residents who were diagnosed or isolated in the state. That’s nine more non-residents in the count since Friday.
Despite the growing number of cases and deaths, local and state officials point to signs they say suggest that the statewide social distancing measures are working. On Monday, restaurants and shops will be allowed to reopen with limited capacity.
The only county in South Florida allowed to reopen is Monroe, but only for residents.
As of Saturday morning, here’s what Florida’s Department of Health data show:
Miami-Dade County saw 111 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising the county total to 12,632. Those who have fallen ill range from zero to age 105. (A person who is listed as age zero means they are less than 1.) The county has had 1,637 hospitalizations and 367 deaths, Florida’s highest death toll.
Broward County reported 113 additional confirmed cases of the disease, raising the county total of confirmed cases to 5,257. Those who have fallen ill range from the age of 0 to 102. The county has had 204 deaths and 1,002 hospitalizations.
Palm Beach County had 39 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising the county total to 3,080. Those who have fallen ill range from the age of 0 to 104. The county has had 459 hospitalizations and 195 deaths.
Monroe County added one more confirmed case of the coronavirus. The county has a total of 80 known cases. Those who have fallen ill range from the age of 6 to 80. The Florida Keys has had three deaths and 9 hospitalizations.
Health officials say the state has had 5,945 hospitalizations relating to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. That is 178 more than Friday’s report.
But, the statewide and county-level data for COVID-19 hospitalizations includes anyone who was hospitalized during their illness and “does not reflect the number of people currently hospitalized,” according to the Department of Health.
The state says it does not “have a figure” to reflect current hospitalization data. Hospitals in Miami-Dade are self-reporting a number of key metrics, including hospitalizations, to the county. Some provide updates every day, others don’t.
Hospitalization admissions can be a valuable tool in determining the virus’ progress in the community and is one of the metrics Miami-Dade officials are using to determine the safety of loosening restrictions.
Unlike testing, which might be limited or take days to report results, hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time visual of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
But, because scientists are still working to learn more about the virus, including how many people in the community are actually infected with the disease and have mild or no symptoms, it’s difficult to determine what percentage of the cases hospitalizations represent.
Testing in Florida has seen a steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began, but less than 2% of the population has been tested for the disease, according to a Miami Herald analysis.
On Friday, 18,962 people were tested in the state — a decline from Thursday when 21,049 people got a test but the fourth highest number of tests given in a day since April 18.
According to the Florida’s health department, the percentage of positive results ranged from 6% to 10% over the past two weeks and was at 8.5% Saturday.
Based on a Miami Herald analysis, the state is far short of the amount of tests experts recommend is needed to safely reopen restaurants, movie theaters and other businesses. The recommended numbers of daily tests needed varies by experts but the dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine told the governor last week that Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day, nearly double Friday’s rate.
It’s unclear if the decline in test results is because there are fewer people requesting tests or because they can’t access them.
In recent weeks, city and county governments have expanded testing options to give homebound residents and those without cars the ability to be tested. Gov. Ron DeSantis also announced last week that he would allow pharmacists to administer the tests if they chose to offer the service.
Health experts told The Miami Herald in April they were concerned the number of pending COVID-19 tests listed by the state is an undercount because Florida reports only the number of Floridians waiting to get test results from state labs, not private ones — and private labs are completing more than 90% of state tests.
Of the 34,555 Florida residents that tested positive, only 3,667 were confirmed by state labs. The rest, 30,888, were administered by private labs.
By gender, the number of Florida residents are split 50% between men at 17,192 confirmed positives and 17,330 women. The state lists 33 as “unknown.”
According to the health department, most of the people who tested positive — 12,751 — had come into contact with those who had been confirmed positive. Those who traveled (1,785) or reported they had traveled and come into contact with someone infected (1,608) was considerably smaller.
But those figures could change because the circumstances of the 16,821 of the 35.463 positives in Florida are still under investigation.
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