Florida’s Sunday COVID update: 5,539 cases, 126 deaths, 1.68 million fully vaccinated

Sunday, the Florida Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 5,539 new cases and 126 total deaths in the state, continuing trends for each number.

Current hospitalizations continued to decrease, a sign of progress against COVID or a factor of the state losing 100 to 200 people per day or a combination of the two. Positive test rates hopped up a bit in the state and Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

For the novel coronavirus pandemic, Florida has had 1,909,221 total cases, 30,852 resident deaths and 31,406 total deaths.

The state’s positive test rate Saturday was 6.40%, according to the daily COVID-19 report, after four consecutive days under 6.0%.

COVID vaccines in Florida and South Florida

▪ Florida: The state’s vaccination report says another 12,149 have received their second COVID vaccine dose, meaning 1,337,431 people are halfway through the vaccine and 1,680,230 are fully vaccinated.

▪ Miami-Dade County: The state reported 1,145 people completed their vaccinations, meaning 179,447 in Miami-Dade have received both vaccination shots.

▪ Broward: Another 203 people completed their vaccinations, putting Broward’s completed vaccine total at 148,919.

▪ Palm Beach: After 131 people completed their vaccine treatment, 157,746 in Palm Beach County have received both shots.

▪ Monroe: Ten people completed their vaccine shot treatment. Overall, 6,588 have done so.

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Confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Florida

▪ Miami-Dade County reported 1,501 more people who tested positive and seven more COVID-19 deaths, putting its pandemic totals at 410,717 cases and 5,429 deaths.

The positive test rate on Saturday was 7.91%, according to the county-by-county breakdown, the highest in at least two weeks.

▪ Broward County reported another 756 cases and 16 deaths, moving its totals to 194,992 cases and 2,390 deaths.

The positive test rate was 6.73% on Saturday, almost exactly the average daily rate for the week (6.71%).

▪ Palm Beach County reported 413 new cases (120,735 for the pandemic) and two deaths (2,457).

Saturday’s positive rate was 6.04%, the third consecutive day of the rate edging upward.

▪ Monroe County reported 35 new cases and zero deaths. Pandemic totals in the Keys are 5,857 cases and 46 deaths.

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Current hospitalizations

Government officials use current hospitalizations to decide the next action in dealing with the pandemic. On the state level, this has been steadily falling over the last month.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reports the number of patients hospitalized statewide with a “primary diagnosis of COVID.” The data, which is updated at least every hour, does not distinguish between the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital intensive care units and those in acute-care beds, which require less attention from nurses.

As of 12:31 p.m Sunday, the agency said there were 3,682 people hospitalized, a 41-person drop from 11:30 a.m. Saturday and a huge plunge of 474 from last Sunday. South Florida’s counties generally dropped: Miami-Dade up 18 to 602; Broward, down 21 to 551; Palm Beach, down 17 to 251; and Monroe, down one to three.

Florida’s hospitalization data does not always match the hospitalization data reported in Miami-Dade’s New Normal Dashboard. Officials say this could be for a number of reasons, including the frequency of daily updates.

Sunday, Miami-Dade’s New Normal Dashboard said hospitals reported 643 COVID-19 patients, up 23 from Saturday’s report, but down 131 from a week ago. The number of patients in Intensive Care Unit Beds was 171 at Saturday’s report and seven days ago. Sunday, that number was down to 168.