Florida hits milestone mark for COVID cases

The Center for Disease Control said Florida hit 5 million total COVID-19 cases this weekend, making it the third-highest state in the country for cases.

Data from the CDC shows the state hit four million cases less than three weeks ago.

It took more than four months to go from 3 million to 4 million cases, hinting at a very infectious virus.

It’s nothing to brag about.

“The seven-day average in the state of Florida is close to 60,000 people a day being diagnosed with COVID,” said Dr. Jonathan Kantor, Epidemiologist.

Florida is now the third state to reach more than 5 million COVID-19 cases during the pandemic.

“For context, keep in mind that, you know, prior to the Delta surge early last summer, we were probably looking at, you know, between 1,000 to 2,000 cases a day,” Kantor said. “So, you’re talking, you’re talking about, you know, a 30-fold or up to a 60-fold increase over that.”

Kantor said the 5 million confirmed cases is an estimation, and says the actual numbers are higher because we aren’t testing everyone. Nor should we.

“No. 1, omicron, everywhere else in the world as well, just shot up in terms of case numbers,” Kantor said. It’s so infectious and it’s become such an issue. No. 2, Florida has a pretty big population, right? You always have to look at what’s the denominator.”

In a matter of weeks, this virus infected more than one million people.

Thankfully, Kantor says omicron is milder, but says people should be aware that this virus can and will mutate again.

“But the downside is that yes, you’re going to continue to see mutations, so you’re going to continue to see new variants over time, as long as you’ve got large numbers of people that are getting infected, you’re really setting up a situation where mutations are bound to happen,” he said.

He went on to say this is why there was a push early on to get vaccinated, to try and reduce the developments of variants over time.

“There was nothing that said that definitively that was going to be more mild, it could also have been more severe,” he said. “And because of that, that’s why it’s so important to be proactive. Advocating for vaccination, but also not really kind of, you know, inducing too much fatigue, while also, you know, being very pro, you know, social distancing, and doing all those things out there that so that people have that choice.”


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