Miami-Dade hits grim milestone: 200K virus cases

FILE - In this April 16, 2020, file photo, a medical worker places a swab in a vial while testing the homeless for COVID-19 through the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, during the new coronavirus pandemic, in Miami. An Associated Press analysis finds that most states are not meeting the minimum levels of testing suggested by the federal government and recommended by public health researchers even as many of them begin to reopen their shattered economies. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) (Lynne Sladky, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

MIAMI – The Department of Health said Saturday that Florida logged 4,452 new coronavirus cases, with 3,151 current hospitalizations.

Miami-Dade has the most number of cases, logging more than 200,000 since the beginning of the pandemic, according to state statistics. More than 3,700 people in the county have died from the virus.

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The number of patients being treated for COVID-19 in Florida hospitals have risen in recent weeks. The state’s online census of hospitals showed numbers hovering between 2,000 and 2,200 for most of last month. The state’s outbreak peaked over the summer, with nearly 10,000 patients being treated in late July.

The new cases bring the state’s known total to 875,096. Officials also added another 44 deaths on Tuesday, bringing the resident death toll to 17,489.

It's unclear how the reported case numbers were affected by Tropical Storm Eta, which forced the closure of some testing sites for a few days. Still, experts are worried by the uptick.

“We are failing,” Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease specialist at Florida International University told Local 10 news earlier in the week. “We are failing because of a lack of understanding about how serious this is and how important it is to get the pandemic under control.”


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