Florida Coronavirus Update: 14,747 Cases, 296 Deaths

TALLAHASSEE, FL — The number of coronavirus cases in Florida rose to 14,747 Tuesday night. The state has a 10.6 percent positive test rate out of 139,669 tests.

The number of cases increased by 1,118 in the past 24 hours in Florida as deaths rose from 254 to 296. Florida's total included 1,893 hospitalizations.

Hundreds of people showed up as much as five hours early in Hialeah Tuesday and appeared to disregard social distancing requirements when the South Florida city began distributing printed unemployment forms in response to an initial online logjam.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said the state had installed 72 additional computer servers and trained hundreds of new customer service representatives to assist people filing unemployment claims.

The governor also urged Floridians to maintain social distancing in the case of religious observances for Easter and Passover this week. He said a large gathering at this time could become a "super spreader" of the virus. See also FL Coronavirus: People Urged To Be Cautious On Easter, Passover

With 5,126 cases, Miami-Dade County had the most confirmed cases of any of Florida's 67 counties as of Tuesday. Broward County, which has a much smaller population than Miami-Dade, had 2,230 cases. Palm Beach County, which is just north of Broward County, had 1,159 cases.

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Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, had 592 cases. Orange County, which includes Orlando, had 718 cases as of Tuesday.

Brevard County reported its first two deaths Tuesday while Hernando and Baker counties reported their first deaths.

Broward County reported seven new deaths. Miami-Dade reported six more deaths. Duval County, Pinellas County and Escambia County each reported one new death. Palm Beach County reported 13 new deaths. St. Lucie County reported one new death as did Clay County, Lee County and Orange County. Sumter County reported two additional deaths as did Hillsborough County.

Taylor and Gilchrist counties reported their first cases of the virus on Tuesday, leaving only two Florida counties without any cases.

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In an attempt to provide as much information to our readers as possible, Patch is publishing a county-by-county breakdown of the coronavirus cases in Florida's 67 counties, along with the average age of patients, the number of hospital cases by county and the number of deaths.

Here is the most recent data released Monday.