Coronavirus in Florida – April 24th
Bottom Line: We’ve had 1,072 new cases and 60 deaths in Florida attributed to the coronavirus over the past day. The 60 deaths match Wednesday’s total, however the new case count jumped by more than 300 over the prior day and is the highest total within 24 hours reported since last Friday. Clearly, not the best news and specifically in the tri-county where we accounted for 2/3rds of those new cases. On the brighter side, the peak for cases in our state remains April 3rd. This week I’ve begun tracking Florida’s performance against President Trump’s 3-Phase plan for reopening the country. We have the potential to be on track for a potential phase-1 reopening in early May - most specifically May 8th based on yesterday’s updated information- if Florida chooses to use the federal guidance for decision making.
Florida remained 8th in the country in total cases and 10th in deaths. We’re the third most populous state. Florida’s performing far better than most states on a relative basis. We’re also testing more aggressively than most states, adjusted for population, making the performance of our state even more impressive. The range in age for positive tests in our state ranges from infants to 104. More than half of all of Florida’s cases currently are in the tri-county area with Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach having the most cases in the state in that order.
Here’s where we now stand in Florida:
- 29,648 cases – 987 deaths
Here’s the count in South Florida right now...
- Broward: 4,431
- Miami-Dade: 10,588
- Palm Beach: 2,554
While the overall positive test rate in Florida stayed steady yesterday at 9.8%. That remains lower than the peak of 11% and that’s important. A two-week decline in the metric is one of the three guidelines outlined by President Trump for a phase 1 reopening. As a reminder, the further into testing we go,the newest diagnosed cases are new cases obtained through community spread. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing, safer-at-home declarations and wearing masks in public. The highest concentration of cases is coming from those between the ages of 45-54.