Florida coronavirus: State tallies more than 11K new cases, 366 hospitalizations, 128 deaths

TAMPA (WFLA) — The Florida Dept. of Health reported an additional 11,466 cases of COVID-19 Friday, pushing the state case total over 325,000.

Florida hospitals have taken in an additional 366 patients, the latest daily report says. A total of 1,693 coronavirus patients have been hospitalized in the last five days.

The new cases of coronavirus reported Friday brings the state total to 327,241 cases. An additional 128 deaths were also reported, bringing the state’s death count to 4,805.

Late last week, Florida finally started releasing the number of current coronavirus hospitalizations broken down by county. As of 11 a.m. ET on Friday, there were 8,886 people hospitalized throughout the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday 2,000 additional contracted nurses would be spread throughout the state to respond to the virus outbreak.

The state received 103,929 tests Thursday. Of that total, 14.34% were positive. The state says it received 89,023 negative results and 14,906 positives. The positive results include people who have tested positive more than once – for example, those who tested positive initially and were tested again to see if they still have the virus.

The percent positivity for new cases is 11.85%. Percent positivity for new cases is the number of people who test PCR (nose swabs) or antigen-positive for the first time divided by all the people tested that day. That does not include people who already tested positive once and have been re-tested to see if they’re still infected.

Floridians in the 25 to 34 age group account for the largest percentage of cases throughout the state. There are 65,970 confirmed cases in that age group, which is 20% of the state’s total.