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By David J. Neal
MIAMI _ The Florida Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard reported 1,838 new cases Monday, the fewest since June 15’s 1,758 new cases, with a positive test rate under 5% for the second consecutive day.
This can’t be dismissed as a holiday weekend anomaly, either. Though the Labor Day Weekend might lead to an out-of-step case count, that didn’t happen on July 4 weekend (9,458, 11,458, 10,059) or on Memorial Day Weekend (676, 740, 879).
The state’s pandemic totals sit at 648,269 cases and, after the 22 deaths reported Monday, 12,023.
As for the positive test rate, the 4.55% reported Monday was the lowest in weeks and pulled the seven-day average daily rate down to 5.57%. That includes the 6.67% from the day of the massive Quest Diagnostics data dump of test results, which the state insists bumped the positive rate up almost a full percent that day.
The previous seven days, the average daily positive test rate was 5.70%.
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South Florida Counties
_ Miami-Dade added 274 cases and three deaths, bringing its state-high pandemic totals to 161,637 and 2,658, respectively. The average daily positive rate for the most recent seven days was 6.53%, although that includes Tuesday’s 9.54%, affected by the Quest data dump. The state says that without that dump, Tuesday’s percentage would’ve been 7.91%. That would take the average daily positive rate down to 6.30%.
That same average from the previous seven days was 7.50%.
Even with the Quest dump, Miami-Dade stretched its streak of consecutive days under a 10% positive rate to 20.
_ Broward reported 233 cases and five deaths. The county has had 73,426 COVID-19 cases during the pandemic and 1,220 deaths. Saturday’s positive test rate, 3.86%, was the lowest in weeks and Sunday’s 3.16% undercut that. The average daily positive test rate dropped to 4.32% from 4.93%, and down to 4.12% using the state’s number for Tuesday outside the Quest dump.
_ Palm Beach saw 120 more positive tests and two more deaths, raising its total cases to 43,187 and death toll to 1,168. The seven-day average daily positive rate dropped from 4.40% to 3.80%, down to 3.67% when factoring in the state’s estimate of the Quest dump effect.
_ The dashboard actually reported three fewer positive cases in Monroe County than it did Sunday, but also three more deaths, an unusually high number given Monroe had only 16 deaths in the entire pandemic.
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Current Hospitalizations
According to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration 11:15 a.m. Sunday update, 3,146 people are hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19, a reduction of 17 from the Saturday 11:45 a.m. count.
Three South Florida counties saw reductions: Miami-Dade by 14 to 533; Broward by three to 347; Palm Beach by four to 171. Monroe County remained the same, at two.
Florida’s current 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.
Miami-Dade’s New Normal Dashboard reported 635 current hospitalizations, 178 of which are in intensive care unit beds. Hospitalizations have gone down every day the last two weeks. ICU bed usage has gone down 11 of the last 13 days.
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Testing
The state reported another 16,933 people have been tested, raising that total to 4,808,756. Of those people tested, 13.5% have tested positive.
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PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194): CORONAVIRUS-FLA