Florida COVID update: 21,189 new cases and fewer people in hospital beds
Florida on Saturday reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that 21,189 COVID-19 cases were added Friday, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.
The state also reported 11 new deaths. In all, Florida has recorded at least 3,200,682 confirmed COVID cases statewide and 43,651 deaths.
Over the last week, from Aug. 20 to Aug. 26, Florida’s resident virus totals increased by 151,760 cases and 1,737 deaths, according to the Florida Department of Health’s weekly report, released on Friday.
Newly reported weekly death totals have continued to climb in every report since mid-June, according to Herald calculations of state data. The state previously saw 1,476 deaths from Aug. 13 to Aug. 19.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREThe Herald publishes the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after each update by the agency.
On Aug. 10, the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported new cases and deaths to the CDC. Cases and deaths used to be logged as total new cases reported on a single day. Now, Florida is reporting cases by the “case date,” according to the CDC, rather than the date the case was logged into the system. The result of this change is a lag in cases by date and a number of cases back-filling over time.
The Herald will continue to report the difference in total cases and deaths from one day to the next in stories about daily new cases and deaths, as this is consistent with the way data have been presented in daily stories since the beginning of the pandemic.
More information
The Herald is calculating new cases using the difference between cumulative total of cases and the total from the previous day, as pulled daily from the CDC trends data. New deaths are calculated the same way.
As a result, the “new cases” and “new deaths” listed on the CDC site for any given day may be different than numbers published by the Herald for the same day.
According to a statement from CDC spokesperson Jasmine Reed on Aug. 18: “Florida’s aggregate case and death data includes case date for cases and date of death for deaths. The method applies data shared by Florida and to data displayed on COVID Data Tracker. Other States also use this reporting method and states can vary in the reporting method. For example, data as of the date that states submit may be the date that a state received its data from its reporting entities, or it might be another dating method that the state prefers.”
DOH spokesperson Weesam Khoury said Florida’s new reporting system “will ensure that continuous epidemiological analyses provide the most updated data to the public.” Neither agency provided further explanation of how a “case date” is assigned to each new case.
Florida COVID-19 vaccine rates
As of the Friday report, 11,219,987 eligible Floridians — 52.2% of the state’s population — had completed the two-dose series of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, according to the CDC.
COVID-19 VACCINES IN SOUTH FLORIDA
The CDC reports that every county’s level of community transmission is high. Here’s how many people have been fully vaccinated in South Florida as of Friday, according to the CDC.
▪ In Miami-Dade County about 1,792,626 people, or 66% of the county’s total population, are fully vaccinated.
▪ In Broward County about 1,085,231 people are fully vaccinated, or 55.6% of the county’s population.
▪ In Palm Beach County about 800,339 people are fully vaccinated, or 53.5% of the county’s population.
▪ In Monroe County about 46,039 people are fully vaccinated, or 62% of the county’s population.
▪ In Manatee County about 197,271 people are fully vaccinated, or 48.9% of the county’s population.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida
There were 16,164 people in the hospital for COVID-19 in Florida on Saturday, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services from 258 Florida hospitals. This is 293 fewer patients than Friday’s COVID patient population.
COVID-19 patients also accounted for 27.95% of all hospital patients.
Of the hospitalized in Florida, 3,556 COVID patients were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of 52. That represents 53.27% of the state’s ICU hospital beds from 258 hospitals reporting data.
Saturday’s Miami-Dade County report said there were 1,434 COVID patients in the county’s hospitals on Friday, a decrease of 205 from the previous day’s report. Of the 130 new COVID patients, 116 (89.2%) had not been vaccinated.
This story was originally published August 28, 2021 at 1:45 PM with the headline "Florida COVID update: 21,189 new cases and fewer people in hospital beds."
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