What to Know
- Florida reported 15,300 new cases Sunday, the highest number on record.
- Statewide, more than 2,576,813 people have been tested for COVID-19, with an overall percent positive of 11.25% for new cases.
- The state has seen a large increase in cases in the past week, with nearly 69,700 confirmed in the last seven days.
Continuing a week long trend of mind-boggling numbers, the coronavirus numbers released Sunday by the Florida Department of Health set yet another record.
Florida reported 15,300 new cases on Sunday, the highest number on record, bringing its total to 269,811. 45 more reported deaths were confirmed by the state since Saturday for a total of 4,242 since the start of the pandemic.
More Coronavirus News
The state has seen a large increase in cases in the past week, with nearly 69,700 confirmed in the last seven days. Sunday’s report showed an 11.25% positivity for new cases, the lowest since at least June 28th.
Also increasing at a record pace is the number of Florida residents who have been reported hospitalized. That number reached a total of 18,271 reported on Sunday.
Statewide, more than 2,576,813 people have been tested for COVID-19. In South Florida, Miami-Dade County’s case total rose Sunday to 64,444 along with 1,139 deaths.
Broward County had a total of 30,025 confirmed cases, a one-day increase of more than 1,772, along with 464 deaths since the pandemic began.
Palm Beach County had a total of 21,018 cases and 606 deaths while Monroe County had a total of 572 cases and six deaths reported as of Sunday.
Health experts are concerned that people are gathering in crowds, and have expressed concern that the Republican National Convention’s nomination party for President Donald Trump will be held in Jacksonville in August.
The
recent rise in numbers hits close to home for a Lauderhill family mourning
after losing two children to the novel coronavirus just days apart.
Over
the span of 11 days, both Byron and Mychaela Francis battled with the virus
before tragically passing away.
“Having
to plan two funerals is really hard,” Montete Hicks, mother of Byron and
Mychaela, said.
On
June 27th, Hicks says her 20-year-old son, Byron, had
trouble breathing. Byron was rushed to the hospital where he later died. A week
later, while mourning the loss of Byron, Mychaela went to the hospital after
she began having headaches and fevers. Mychaela needed oxygen, her blood
pressure dropped and she eventually lost a kidney.
“As the days went by, while she was [at the hospital],
everything just went to breaking down in her body,” Hicks said.
Florida Gov. Ron
DeSantis has defended his administration’s resistance toward mass closures and
rollbacks across state, saying when he made the decision to reopen much of the
state in May, COVID-19 infections “had very, very low prevalence,” especially
in the northern parts of the state.
“There
was no justification to not move forward,” the Republican governor said Friday,
adding that hospitals across the state have between 10,000 and 13,000 available
beds amid reports that some hospitals are near capacity. “We have a situation
where you got a lot of beds available. No major system, nobody that we’ve seen
yet, has even gone to the surge level,” he said.
A doctor’s group gathered outside his mansion in Tallahassee on Friday to urge him to issue an order mandating the use of facemasks statewide.
DeSantis
has thus far resisted those calls, arguing that local governments must decide
for themselves if stricter levels of protection are needed. Florida’s most
heavily populated municipalities mostly have done so already. Those on the
frontlines of health care see things differently.
“People don’t want to wear their mask, and as a health care worker it’s frustrating,” said Esther Segura, a nurse at Jackson South Medical Center in Miami. “Spend a day in the shoes of a nurse that’s in ICU … and see what they’re seeing and then you would have a different perspective.”
One step some consider a move forward came Saturday with “The Most Magical Place on Earth” reopening after nearly four months with new rules in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Walt
Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are reopening Saturday, while
Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will follow four days later.
All of Disney’s Orlando parks closed in mid-March in an
effort to stop the virus’s spread. Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando
closed around the same time but reopened several weeks ago after instituting
similar rules to protect employees and customers from the virus.
Disney’s
new rules include mandatory masks and social distancing. Visitors will need
reservations to enter a park, and they won’t be allowed to hop between parks.
Both visitors and employees will receive temperature checks when they enter.
Fireworks shows and parades have been suspended to prevent drawing too many
people together.
Park-goers
say that nearly everyone in sight wore masks on Saturday morning. Capacity is
nowhere near where it is under normal circumstances, they said.
“I’ve
been here on spring breaks where you can barely walk around. The walkways are
very wide open,” said Lori Lovell, who came from Evansville, Indiana with
friends for the reopening
Some
attractions and dining areas aren’t yet open. Another change: visitors can’t
hug and greet the costumed Disney characters. Instead, the characters are in
“cavalcades,” or motorcades, as they make their way through the park.
Disney has been opening its parks back up around the globe for the past two months. In May, the company opened Disney Springs, a complex of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues in Lake Buena Vista.
