Coronavirus update – June 15th
Bottom Line: This daily update is designed to put everything in perspective with straight-forward facts. No hyperbole, no misinformation, no nonsense. If you’re looking for positive news, there’s not a lot of it coming out of the weekend. More than 8 million diagnosed cases worldwide. Problems continuing to escalate in about a dozen countries led by Brazil, and of course what we’ve got going on in Florida. But there was one place we could point to for improved news coming out of the weekend. In the United States we had the fewest deaths attributed to COVID-19 since March 25th. This suggests we might be onto better treatment options along with earlier detection due to increased testing. It’s also possible current strains aren’t as deadly, though that’s yet to be proven.
Here’s where we stand as of now...
Worldwide:
- 8,007,712 – 435,848 deaths – 4,134,702 recovered
Nationally:
- 2,162,228 cases – 117,858 deaths – 870,050 recovered
Florida:
- 75,568 cases – 2,934 deaths
The news in Florida, especially South Florida, was brutal over the weekend. We had our three highest days for diagnosed cases yet and new hotspots opened across the state. Numerous bars and nightclubs which reopened as part of phase two reopening are temporarily closing after cases attributed to those establishments and Miami mayor Francis Suarez is considering re-imposing restrictions in the city.
Less than 40% of the increase in new cases can potentially be explained by additional testing and the fastest growth is now coming from younger adults. There’s no question significant spread has been occurring in Florida, especially South Florida and it’s likely reopening along with protests have fueled the growth of the spread.
Over half of Florida’s cases remain in the tri-county with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County having the most cases in that order – though Palm Beach County continues to see the biggest increase in new cases and is now fewer than 100 cases behind Broward since the pandemic began.
Here are the South Florida hotspots right now - there are two new ones in Palm Beach County today:
Palm Beach (8): 33,407,33415,33430, 33435, 33458, 33460, 33461, 33463
Broward (7): 33023, 33024, 33025, 33028,33064,33311, 33313
Miami-Dade (20): 33012, 33015, 33016, 33033, 33034, 33055, 33125, 33126, 33136, 33139, 33140, 33142, 33143, 33147 33157, 33161, 33162, 33165, 33166, 33175
The overall positive test rate in Florida rose over the weekend to 5.4%. The peak was 11% around five weeks ago, however the low was 5.2% a week ago. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and wearing masks in public.Despite the most recent news Florida continues to outperform the country overall. Florida is 8th in total cases nationally while we remain 11th in deaths. Florida is the third most populous state. With over 117,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19, it is the deadliest virus in the United States since the 1918 pandemic which killed over 600,000 Americans.