Coronavirus update – July 9th
Bottom Line: This daily update is designed to put everything in perspective with straight-forward facts. No hyperbole, no misinformation, no nonsense. Wednesday brought about the most new cases in a day to date worldwide with over 213,000. It’s safe to say that the US isn’t the only country struggling to reign in the spread of the virus. But speaking of the US, we unfortunately were the primary catalyst with over 61,000 new cases – the first time the US has crossed 60k cases in a day. Additionally, the past two days have been the deadliest over the past month. The recent narrative that overall deaths are in decline, isn’t correct. While it’s true that the overall death rate is in decline with the recent rise in cases in younger people, the pace and total numbers of daily deaths have been on rise and are now back to levels of a month ago when the average diagnosed American was 15 years older on average.
Here’s where we stand as of now...
Worldwide:
- 12,173,613 – 552,204 deaths – 7,071,933 recovered
Nationally:
- 3,159,390 cases – 134,867 deaths – 1,392,807 recovered
Florida:
- 223,783 cases – 3,890 deaths - 30,190 recovered
In Florida, we had 9,989 new diagnosed cases on Wednesday, an increase of greater than 2,600 thousand from Tuesday along with 49 deaths. The past week has produced the highest number of deaths in Florida since May 8th. South Florida remains the epicenter of the virus with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties having the most cases in that order. There are 92 zip codes in South Florida which are hotspots including 19 in Palm Beach County, 25 in Broward and 48 in Miami-Dade.
The overall positive test rate continues to rise in Florida. After reaching a low of 5.2% in May, the rate since testing began has risen to 9.6% - including testing at greater than 10% positive, the target rate, each day since June 22nd. We’re seeing the spike in cases coming from both an increase in testing and predominantly from increased community spread. This reinforces the importance of using proper safety measures like wearing masks in public and socially distancing.
Florida is 4th in total cases, while the state is 9th in deaths. Florida is the third most populous state, so despite current struggles – we've fared better on balance than most states since the pandemic began. With over 134,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19, it is the deadliest virus in the United States since the 1918 pandemic which killed over 675,000 Americans.