Florida breaks COVID-19 record, Miami-Dade among the worst-hit counties

DORAL, FL – Florida breaks COVID-19 record with 31,758 new cases in a single day and a positivity rate of 13.8% reported this week.

Meanwhile, Miami-Dade County ranks third in highest positivity rate in the state with 16.6% following Palm Beach on the second place with 17.1%, while Monroe ranks fourth with a positivity rate of 15.3%. In contrast, Broward takes the lead with a positivity rate of 19.1%.

The statewide new-case positivity rate has been escalating reaching the highest peak this week, up from 5.3% last week and 2.6% the previous week.

The almost 32,000 new COVID-19 cases reported to the CDC from Thursday, a new single-day high for the pandemic, surpassed the previous record of 27,669 from August 26.

In total, the state has reported 125,201 new infections from Dec. 17-23, which represents a 324% increase compared to last week’s 29,519. Florida has managed to report fewer than 2,000 new cases per day from late October until early December.

The spike comes from the omicron variant that has proven to be the most contagious variant of them all even though is not as deadly as its predecessor, delta.

In addition, omicron doesn’t hospitalize as many people like other variants, but it still disrupts people’s lives by being highly contagious.

Also, Florida breaks COVID-19 record amid one of the busiest times of the year, which led a great amount of people to get tested before the Christmas celebrations, so much that pharmacies ran out of at-home testing kits, while the different coronavirus testing sites across South Florida have been saturated with long lines in recent days.

In Miami-Dade, just today officials gave away a total of 12,500 at-home COVID-19 testing kits at several locations across the county, running out of supplies before the closing distribution time of 3 p.m. Distribution will resume on Monday.

In the face of this, health authorities suggest people to continue vaccinating and getting booster shots in combination with the use of face coverings when indoors and avoiding gathering with people who aren’t protected.

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