Coronavirus in Florida – May 4th
Bottom Line: We’ve had 2,388 new cases and 111 deaths in Florida attributed to the coronavirus since Friday morning.There’s been a trend established with Thursday producing the highest level of new case counts of any particular day with new case counts dropping through the weekend. That happened again over the past few days, with Thursday’s spike being lower than the two prior weeks – ditto the reported cases through the weekend.
Today is phase one reopening day for 64 of Florida’s 67 counties,with the exceptions of course being Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach...although elective surgeries will be allowed to resume in South Florida starting today. Additionally, state parks are opening statewide today. The state received 200,000 antibody test kits over the weekend that will be sent to medical facilities around the state to test health care professionals on the front lines and testing sites across the state continue to have more testing capacity than demand for tests.
Florida remains 8th 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. The range in age for positive tests in our state ranges from infants to 105. More than half of all of Florida’s cases currently are in the tri-county area with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach having the most cases in the state in that order.
Here’s where we now stand in Florida:
- 36,078 cases – 1,379 deaths
Here’s the count in South Florida right now...
- Broward: 5,312
- Miami-Dade: 12,775
- Palm Beach: 3,130
The overall positive test rate in Florida continued to drop over the weekend. 8.4% of all tests for COVID-19 have come back positive – that's down from a peak of 11%about two weeks ago. 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, safer-at-home declarations and wearing masks in public. The average age of someone diagnosed with COVID-19 in Florida is 52.