ORLANDO, Fla. – The state of Florida on Friday released new data about coronavirus cases in the Sunshine State, a day after no new information was provided due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Testing sites were closed across the state Thursday but reopened on Friday morning.
Florida has reported more than 979,000 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic was first reported here in March. The state will likely surpass 1 million cases within the next week as the United States closes in on 13 million confirmed coronavirus cases.
Ahead of Thanksgiving, health officials warned against holiday gatherings, which they said could cause the virus to easily spread. It will take about two weeks before the impact of the holiday is reflected in the virus testing data.
“There is a kind of an overwhelming sense of apprehension as to what’s going to come in the next 10 days,” said Meeta Shah, of Chicago’s Rush University Medical Centers.
“We are fully expecting the next few weeks to be brutal,” an ICU nurse said.
While hospitalizations have been slowly climbing in Florida, local officials say they currently are not in danger of being overwhelmed.
[PREVIOUS REPORT: Millions of travelers pack Florida airports as coronavirus cases tick upwards]
Below is information provided by the Florida Department of Health for Friday, Nov. 27.
Cases
The Florida Department of Health reported 17,344 new cases on Friday, bringing the state’s overall total to 979,020 cases since March. The new totals reflect two days of testing because the DOH did not release any results on Thanksgiving.
Deaths
The Florida Department of Health on Friday reported 114 people have recently died from COVID-19. As of Friday’s coronavirus report, a total of 18,596 deaths across the state have been related to the coronavirus, a number that includes 233 non-resident deaths in Florida.
State health officials have always maintained that virus fatalities are often delayed in being reported to the FDOH, with some deaths not reported for a month or more.
Hospitalizations
Currently, there are 3,748 people with the virus hospitalized in Florida as of Friday afternoon, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration. The Florida DOH reported 334 newly hospitalized patients due to COVID-19 between Wednesday evening and Friday.
Positivity rate
The percent of positive results ranged from 6.20% to 10.06% over the past two weeks and was 6.20% for tests reported Thursday and Friday.
Below is a breakdown of the coronavirus numbers across the 10-county Central Florida region for Nov. 26 and 27:
| County | Cases | New Cases | Hospitalizations | New Hospitalizations | Deaths | New Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevard | 15,259 | 278 | 1,184 | 5 | 436 | 2 |
| Flagler | 2,685 | 64 | 192 | 2 | 42 | 0 |
| Lake | 10,472 | 199 | 818 | 1 | 253 | 3 |
| Marion | 12,863 | 235 | 1,160 | 5 | 379 | 2 |
| Orange | 57,101 | 1,135 | 1,771 | 12 | 642 | 7 |
| Osceola | 17,966 | 433 | 939 | 1 | 240 | 0 |
| Polk | 27,159 | 326 | 2,889 | 42 | 671 | 0 |
| Seminole | 12,685 | 298 | 813 | 4 | 273 | 5 |
| Sumter | 3,412 | 59 | 317 | 1 | 95 | 3 |
| Volusia | 16,197 | 588 | 1,075 | 5 | 365 | 3 |
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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