Florida Sets Coronavirus Record On Fourth Of July

TALLAHASSEE, FL — With a number of beaches closed and fireworks displays canceled, Florida set a jaw-dropping record of more than 11,000 new coronavirus cases on the Fourth of July.

Florida health officials reported 11,458 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, two days after Thursday's previous one-day record of more than 10,000 new cases.

The state's total positive cases rose to 190,052 from 178,594 over the previous 24-hour period as South Florida beaches shut down for the the Fourth of July weekend in an attempt to slow the spread of the deadly virus.

Miami-Dade County is considered the epicenter of Florida's outbreak along with nearby Broward and Palm Beach counties but other Florida counties have been accounting for a greater share of cases in recent days.

Florida's largest public health system, Miami-based Jackson Health, said it will limit inpatient surgeries and procedures to emergency and urgent cases starting Monday to make sure beds are available for seriously ill patients, including coronavirus patients. Many of the new positive cases are of people between 33 to 37, according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida's has set a string of one-day records over the past three weeks while the disease also has taken its youngest victim in the state, an 11-year-old boy with special needs from Miami-Dade County.

State officials suspended the consumption of on-premises alcohol at bars, and a number of Florida counties and municipalities imposed mandatory mask orders. Miami-Dade County also imposed a curfew to limit the number of people on the streets at night.

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The total number of deaths from the new coronavirus in Florida rose to 3,702 from 3,684 a day earlier. State officials also reported another 101 deaths in Florida involving non-Florida residents.

Eight Florida counties reported 18 new deaths Saturday. That compares with 64 new deaths Friday, 65 new deaths Thursday, 46 new deaths Wednesday, 58 new deaths Tuesday, 28 deaths Monday, 29 new deaths Sunday and 24 deaths last Saturday.

Miami-Dade County reported four new deaths. Broward County reported three new deaths. Palm Beach County reported five new deaths.

Hillsborough County reported two new deaths. Brevard County reported one new death as did Escambia County, Osceola County and Pinellas County.

Health officials reported 15,735 hospitalizations, up from 15,491 over the previous 24-hour period. That represents an increase of 244 new hospitalizations. In contrast, there were only 113 new hospitalizations one month ago on June 3.

Miami-Dade reported 44,729 cases of the virus as of Saturday. Nearby Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, reported 19,575 cases. Palm Beach County, which includes Palm Beach and West Palm, reported 16,149 cases.

Those three counties account for 80,453 cases, or about 42 percent of the state's total.

Florida had an 8.8 percent positive test rate for the virus Saturday as the number of tests administered in the state reached 2,148,327. The percentage of positive cases has been increasing for about three weeks.

Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, reported 13,700 cases. Orange County, which includes Orlando, reported 13,262 cases.

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

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Patch updates this chart once each day based on data provided by the Florida Department of Health. The counties that reported new deaths on Saturday are shown in bold.

Here is the most recent data: