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By Michelle Marchante and David J. Neal
MIAMI _ Florida’s Department of Health on Wednesday confirmed 1,948 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s known total to 706,516. Also, 172 Florida resident deaths were announced, bringing the resident death toll to 14,315.
One new nonresident death was also announced, bringing the nonresident toll to 171 for the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to Florida’s COVID-19 Data and Surveillance Dashboard.
The Department of Health told the Miami Herald there was a discrepancy in the number for resident deaths between the state coronavirus report and the state’s dashboard, which incorrectly showed two more resident deaths statewide and wrong death tolls for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Florida’s 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 1:31 p.m. EDT Wednesday, the AHCA reported 2,085 current hospitalizations around the state, a decrease of 89 from Tuesday night. The number of cases fell in most South Florida counties. Miami-Dade was down two to 269, Broward was down 13 to 186 and Palm Beach was down three to 111.
The exception was Monroe County, which increased from four to five hospitalizations.
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.
Wednesday, Miami-Dade’s chart said the current hospitalizations slipped slightly to 340. COVID-19 patients in ICU beds rose from 109 to 116, which have been the low and the high for that number since last Thursday.
Testing in Florida has seen steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus’s progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
Epidemiologists then use the testing data to create a positivity rate. The rate helps them determine if a rise in cases is because of an increase in testing or if it means there’s increased transmission of the virus in the community.
On Wednesday, Florida’s Department of Health reported the results of 44,812 people tested Tuesday. The positivity rate of new cases (people who tested positive for the first time) was 5.03%.
If retests are included _ people who have tested positive once and are being tested for a second time _ the positivity rate was 6.35% of the total, the report said.
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PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194): CORONAVIRUS-FLA