Florida sets another record for single-day covid case increase

MIAMI — Florida on Christmas Day saw its largest single-­day increase of newly reported covid-19 cases since the pandemic began. The record breaks the previous one set on Christmas Eve.

“Omicron is 10 (times) more potent at causing reinfection than previous variants — protection from prior infection is not as good as protection from triple” vaccination, Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert at Florida International University, told the Miami Herald on Friday.

The state reported 32,850 covid-19 cases on Friday, according to Saturday’s report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on Miami Herald calculations of CDC data. The previous record was broken with Christmas Eve’s report of 31,758 cases.

Florida’s seven-day case average has seen consecutive increases since Dec. 10. On that day, the seven-day average was 1,700; it grew to 21,284 on Saturday, the highest since Aug. 30, when it was at 21,302.

Marty recommends that people who want to attend holiday gatherings get a negative covid-19 test 24 hours before.

“Cooperate and help each other stay safe,” she said. “Outdoor parties are safer, but we have documented several outbreaks at outdoor gatherings in Florida in the last few days.”

No new deaths were reported for Friday, though it is likely the Florida Department of Health will add deaths to the total. The state has done this in the past when it has added cases and deaths to previous days during the pandemic.

In the past seven days, the state has added 22 deaths on average.

In all, Florida has recorded at least 3,864,288 confirmed covid-19 cases and 62,347 deaths.

Marty expects to see even more cases after the holidays.

Vaccination rates

The CDC won’t update vaccination data until Monday, but here is where the numbers stood Thursday: About 13,541,346 eligible Floridians — 63% of the state’s population — have completed the two-dose series of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or have completed Johnson & Johnson’s single-­dose vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hospitalizations in Fla.

There were 2,261 people hospitalized for covid-19 in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report on Saturday. That is 70 more people hospitalized than in Friday’s report, when 248 hospitals reported, but not necessarily the same hospitals. Saturday’s hospitalization data was reported from 246 Florida hospitals.

Covid-19 patients now take up 4.18% of patient beds, compared to 3.99% in the previous day’s reporting hospitals.

Of the people hospitalized in Florida, 342 were in intensive care unit beds, an increase of seven. That represents about 5.55% of the state’s ICU hospital beds, compared to 5.37% the previous day.