ORLANDO, Fla. – As Americans approach another holiday season, the CDC is once again repeating its warning and asking the public to avoid traveling during the pandemic.
The warning comes the same week that Florida surpassed 1 million coronavirus cases statewide, a milestone shared by only a couple other states.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the best way to stay safe and protect others is to stay home.
Meanwhile, the agency announced new guidelines that shorten recommended quarantines after close contact with someone infected with coronavirus. The agency said the risk in a shorter quarantine is small, but that the change makes following the guidance less of a hardship.
The no-travel advice echoes recommendations for Thanksgiving, but many Americans ignored it. With COVID-19 continuing to surge, the CDC added the testing option.
“Cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing, deaths are increasing. We need to try to bend the curve, stop this exponential increase,” the CDC’s Dr. Henry Walke said during a briefing.
[READ YESTERDAY’S REPORT: Florida reports nearly 10,000 new COVID-19 cases with vaccine on horizon]
Walke said any travel-related surge in cases from travel would likely be apparent about a week to 10 days after Thanksgiving.
“The safest thing to do is to postpone holiday travel and stay home,” said Dr. Cindy Friedman, also with the CDC. “Travel volume was high over Thanksgiving and even if small numbers were infected, that could result in hundreds of thousands of new infections.”
[READ MORE: Stay home for the holidays or get tested for coronavirus twice, CDC urges]
Below is a breakdown of Florida’s COVID-19 numbers for Thursday, Dec. 3.
Cases
The Florida Department of Health reported 10,870 new cases on Thursday, bringing the state’s overall total to 1,029,030 cases since March.
Deaths
The Florida Department of Health on Thursday reported 100 people have recently died from COVID-19. As of Thursday’s coronavirus report, a total of 19,112 deaths across the state have been related to the coronavirus, a number that includes 238 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
As of Thursday afternoon, there are currently 4,291 people with the virus hospitalized in Florida, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.
In total, 55,820 people have been hospitalized in Florida after complications from the coronavirus. The state reported 253 new hospitalizations on Thursday.
Positivity rate
The percent of positive results ranged from 6.19% to 9.11% during the past two weeks and was 8.19% for tests reported Wednesday.
Below is a county-by-county breakdown of COVID-19 data for the Central Florida region.
| County | Cases | New Cases | Hospitalizations | New Hospitalizations | Deaths | New Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevard | 16,208 | 255 | 1,220 | 8 | 451 | 6 |
| Flagler | 2,812 | 26 | 196 | 2 | 43 | 1 |
| Lake | 10,899 | 90 | 853 | 8 | 258 | 0 |
| Marion | 13,462 | 182 | 1,180 | 2 | 384 | 2 |
| Orange | 59,791 | 573 | 1,803 | 9 | 652 | 4 |
| Osceola | 19,066 | 249 | 962 | 2 | 245 | 0 |
| Polk | 28,399 | 298 | 2,996 | 16 | 691 | 1 |
| Seminole | 13,323 | 129 | 835 | 3 | 280 | 1 |
| Sumter | 3,602 | 67 | 329 | 1 | 98 | 0 |
| Volusia | 16,921 | 148 | 1,118 | 17 | 371 |
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