Coronavirus update – May 14th
Bottom Line: This daily update is designed to put everything in perspective with straight-forward facts. No hyperbole, no misinformation, no nonsense. The news continued to improve Wednesday. New diagnosed cases were slightly lower in the US than the prior two days and were 45% lower than the peak day for cases in which occurred April 24th. This despite most of the country being in some state of reopening. The overall trend continues to be promising throughout the country. There continues to be evidence that states are able to begin to reopen while simultaneously reducing the spread of the virus while increasing testing. Outside of the US, Russia now third in total cases, along with Brazil which is now 6th, continue to be the areas of greatest growth and concern.
Here’s where we stand as of now...
Worldwide:
- 4,441,891 – 298,296 deaths – 1,668,091 recovered
Nationally:
- 1,430,348 cases – 85,197 deaths –310,259 recovered
Florida:
- 41,923 cases – 1,779 deaths
In Florida we had 479 new diagnosed cases and 47 deaths over the past day. The news was highly encouraging. After Tuesday brought us the top day for new cases since May 1st, we had half as many new cases yesterday reconfirming the improving trend in new cases statewide. We had the fifth fewest new cases reported since March 24th on Wednesday - with 65 of 67 counties in Florida reopening. It’s now been ten full days since the original 64 counties began to reopen. With an average incubation period of five days for the coronavirus – there's increasing room for optimism for further reopening in Florida.
Florida also improved to 9th in the country in total cases and 10th in deaths. We’re the third most populous state. Florida’s performing far better than most states on a relative basis. We’ve also tested more aggressively than most states, with only New York having tested more than Florida. More than half of all of Florida’s cases remain in the tri-county area with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach having the most cases in the state in that order.
The overall positive test rate in Florida continued to improve Wednesday dropping to yet another new low of 7.1% - that's down from the peak of 11%. As a reminder, the newest diagnosed cases are new cases obtained through community spread. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and wearing masks in public. The average age of someone diagnosed with COVID-19 in Florida is 52.