WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Florida State Health Department no longer is releasing coronavirus information on a daily report and instead will be giving the information on a weekly basis.
Since the pandemic began one year ago in March, the state has updated a dashboard and issued reports that include a running total of deaths, cases and vaccinations, including by county and age groups, as well as positivity rates.
"Florida is transitioning into the next phase of the COVID-19 response," Health Department communications director Weesam Khoury wrote in an email to WPTV on Friday. "As vaccinations increase and new case positivity rate decreases, the Florida Department of Health has moved to a weekly reporting schedule for key COVID-19 data that can be found here [floridahealthcovid19.gov]."
Khoury noted that Florida’s case positivity has been below 5 percent for more than three weeks, with infections in seniors ages 65 and older are the lowest since early in the pandemic.
In a weekly report issued Friday, the report shows 36,985 deaths, which is an increase of 12 from Thursday. And the total number of residents' cases was 2,289,332, an increase of 3,000.
States also report information to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including vaccinations, with the information usually a day behind. In terms of 10 top states for most deaths, every other states reports most data on a website at least six days a week.
Over the weekend, the department didn't issue reports throughout the three-day Memorial Day weekend. They resumed on Tuesday with four days of data, then Wednesday and Thursday.
Since the pandemic, on four other days information wasn't reported -- Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day and Oct. 10 when there were data reporting problems.
In data released Thursday, the state's deaths increased by 49 to 36,973 residents with 744 nonresidents for a total of 37,717, and cases by 1,878 to 2,329,867 including nonresidents. On Wednesday, infections rose by 1,234, the lowest since 738 Sept. 29.
With state testing sites closing, the numbers have dramatically declined to under six digits.
The state's daily first-time positivity rate reported Thursday was 3.15 percent with the state target under 5. Palm Beach County is 2.28 percent, one day after 1.96, the lowest since 1.91 Oct. 11.
In weekly averages, it is 3.2 percent in Palm Beach County, 3.9 percent in Martin, 4.6 percent in Indian River, 3.9 percent in Martin, 7.7 percent in Okeechobee, 2.8 percent in Dade and 2.5 percent in Broward.
Hospitalizations will continued to be reported. On Friday, 1,748 were listed, the lowest since data was first reported in July 2020. That is a decline from 1,799 Thursday. The high was 9,520 on July 21. The numbers had decreased but it reached 7,762 on Jan. 14.
In the weekly report, deaths include 7 children under 16 and 142 from 16-29. At the other extreme, there are 30,377 that were 65 and older.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention receives daily information, including vaccinations, from states but often it's information was not updated.
