On Tuesday, the United States crossed the 100,000 death threshold for COVID-19. It is a reality check and reminder than the threat of the virus is still very real. COVID-19 is the deadliest virus in the United States since the 1918 pandemic which killed an estimated 500,000 people.
Worldwide, there are 5,698,421 cases, 352,475 deaths, and 2,443,803 recoveries. Brazil and Russia continue to see rapid growth in cases. Tuesday produced the fewest newly diagnosed cases in the United States in over two weeks, we had 1,725,275 cases, 100,572 deaths, and 479,969 recoveries. This is especially encouraging with all 50 states in some phase of reopening for at least a week and in the case of the five original states to have reopened, including Georgia, for over a month.
In Florida, we have 51,746 cases and 2,252 deaths. Meaning, we had 509 newly diagnosed cases and 7 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Both of those numbers are below the two-week trendline and are especially encouraging with most of the state in some form of opening process over three weeks ago. Florida continues to outperform the country as a whole. The overall positive test rate in Florida remained at 5.7%, the lowest since testing began. That's down from a peak of 11%. We’ve also tested more aggressively than most states, with only New York having tested more than Florida. More than half of Florida’s cases remain in the tri-county area with Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach having the most cases in the state in that order.
As a reminder, the newest diagnosed cases are new cases obtained through community spread. This reinforces the importance of adhering to the warnings of public officials including social distancing and wearing masks in public.
Photo by: Getty Images North America