Florida’s New Cases Rise to Highest Level (10:50 a.m. NY)
Florida reported 80,109 Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, up 3.6% from a day earlier, compared with an average increase of 2.5% in the previous seven days. Deaths among Florida residents reached 2,993, an increase of 1.9%.
Seen on a rolling seven-day basis, Florida’s new cases reached 14,109, the highest level ever. For most of May, the state had been reporting about 5,000 cases a week, but the numbers have been elevated since early June. New cases have now exceeded 1,000 a day in 13 of the last 14 days.
Governor Ron DeSantis has attributed the uptick to isolated outbreaks in agriculture communities and increased testing, although the latter explanation is contradicted by the rising positivity rate among test batches.
Cumulative hospitalizations rose by 191 to 12,206. On a rolling seven day-basis, they reached 1,021, the highest level since May 25.
In Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county, local leaders including county Mayor Carlos Gimenez and City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Monday that they have no plans to revert to lockdowns of their economies at this time. But they said the main metric that could trigger a re-evaluation of the reopening policy would be a concerning rise in hospitalizations.