Florida Virus Cases, Hospitalizations Hit Record; Deaths Up

(Bloomberg) -- Florida’s Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations jumped by the most on record and deaths climbed the most in a month, a sign that the state’s outbreak is growing unabated and is leading to more serious clinical consequences.

Florida reported 169,106 cumulative Covid-19 cases Thursday, up 6.4%, from a day earlier, compared with an average 5.6% in the previous seven days. Deaths reached 3,617, an increase of 67, the most in a month, according to the release, which includes data through Wednesday.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly ruled out the need to reimpose a lockdown, but hospitals and local officials officials are taking note of the trend in cases. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Wednesday that he will start requiring masks in all public spaces, while neighboring Broward County also expanded its mask order and added restrictions on restaurants.

Jackson Health System, which operates one of Florida’s biggest hospitals, said it will limit inpatient surgeries and procedures to emergency and urgent cases starting Monday.

Cumulative hospitalizations rose by 325, or 2.2%, to 15,150. The daily change was the highest in Bloomberg’s data dating back to mid-March.

Reopening Economy

Florida started reopening its economy on May 4, and the uptick in cases was foreseeable based on “premature relaxation” of restrictions and rising movement among the population, said Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. But the actual scope of the increase has been surprising, he said.

“Florida has a serious problem at hand,” said Mokdad, adding that more deaths are coming even if necessary policy measures are enacted now.

Mokdad, who noted that cases are mounting in other Sun Belt states, said the U.S. should have a blanket mask rule. He also said policy makers should prepare the public for a possible limited-duration lockdown to curb the spread, while giving businesses some certainty as to how long they’d be closed.

In Florida, the median age of cases increased to 37 from 36 a day earlier. But new infections are no longer just a youthful phenomenon: The more vulnerable 75-and-over cohort has had more than 2,400 new cases in the past week alone. Cumulative cases in that group rose by 23% in the period.

For much of the recent surge, DeSantis has argued that the state would be OK as long as it shielded the most vulnerable from the virus. But it is increasingly clear that the state wasn’t able to.

In long-term care centers, including nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, cases have set records in each of the past two reports. To be sure, the state has drastically expanded testing at long-term care facilities in previous months. But the uptick in the numbers is very recent, and it wasn’t immediately clear how much testing was a factor. (The Florida Department of Health didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.)

Overall testing is vastly more widespread than it was in March, but the new positivity rate -- which measures the proportion of people testing positive for the first time compared to the day’s overall testing -- has been on the rise as well.

Explore the statistics yourself at Florida’s Covid-19 data hub.

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