Florida COVID: Weekly cases drop for 1st time since November

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Florida reported 289,204 new COVID-19 cases from the past seven days, which represents a 33% drop from last week and the state’s first week-to-week decrease in new infections since November.

The numbers from Jan. 14-20 were posted in the state health department’s weekly coronavirus report Friday. They average out to 41,315 new cases per day.

Last week, the Florida Department of Health reported a record 430,297 new COVID infections, an average of 61,471 per day.

The last time Florida reported fewer new cases than the week prior was the week of Thanksgiving. There were fewer than 10,000 new infections reported that entire week.

The state has now gone nine straight days with fewer than 60,000 new cases after 38,614 were reported to the CDC from Thursday.

Florida’s new-cases positivity rate also dropped this week to 26.8% after sitting at 29.4% last week. (See the full weekly report at the bottom of this page.)

The head of the Florida Hospital Association said this week that South Florida, in particular, has already passed the peak of this omicron variant surge and the rest of the state appears to be following.

On Friday, 11,140 people remained hospitalized in Florida with COVID-19, still far below the height of the delta variant surge over the summer when that number surpassed 17,000.

“Our hospitals are seeing either a flattening or a decrease in hospitalizations for COVID. That is tremendous news,” Mary Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, told Local 10 News on Wednesday. “We are not seeing the level of acuity in terms of the need for ICU beds, and certainly the length of stay is less, so that is leading to individuals being in and out of the hospital much more quickly.”

While the contagious omicron variant may cause less severe disease on average, COVID-19 deaths in the United States are climbing and modelers forecast 50,000 to 300,000 more Americans could die by the time the wave subsides in mid-March.

Florida has reported at least 5,281,000 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, a total that doesn’t include people who test positive using an at-home test and don’t report it to health officials. The state’s death toll connected to COVID is 63,574, according to the latest CDC data.

ALSO SEE: Free at-home COVID test kits to every American can be ordered online

For information on where you can get a COVID-19 test or vaccine in South Florida, click here.

See the state’s full weekly COVID-19 report: