Florida coronavirus: State reports 3,571 new cases, 149 deaths

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Florida Department of Health reported just over 3,500 new coronavirus cases on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the state reported the highest daily coronavirus case count since early August, which the state says can be attributed to an ‘unacceptable’ data dump by Quest Diagnostics.

The state confirmed 3,571 new cases Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to 637,013.

The health department received 65,205 test results from labs across the state Wednesday. Of the test results received Wednesday, 8.55% were positive. The state says there were 59,633 negative results and 5,572 positives. This includes people who have been tested multiple times.

The percent positivity for new cases was 6.23% on Wednesday. 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.

The state reported 149 total Florida-resident virus fatalities in the latest update. The report does not mention the exact date of death, therefore the deaths announced may not be from the past 24 hours. It can sometimes take weeks for fatalities to be logged. The Florida-resident death toll now stands at 11,650.

Florida also reported 270 new COVID-related hospitalizations. The total hospitalizations now stand at 39,428.

Here’s a county-by-county breakdown of cases in the Tampa Bay area: