Florida’s record-breaking number of coronavirus cases in one day — a staggering 15,000-plus new cases reported on Sunday — is a very troubling sign for the state’s already strained hospitals, infectious disease experts tell the Herald.
The Sunshine State’s outbreak is “completely out of control,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.
“When you have that many cases, it runs the risk of them running into hospital capacity issues,” he said. “We’re already hearing of strained hospitals and ICUs, and now that’s becoming much more precarious.”
Florida shattered the national record for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding 15,299 confirmed cases.
California had the previous record of daily positive cases — 11,694, which was set on Wednesday. New York, the country’s first coronavirus epicenter, had 11,571 on April 15.
In Florida, the percentage of positive tests has jumped dramatically, Adalja noted. The positive test rate was below 5% in late May, but in the last week the average has been around 19%.
“It’s outpacing anyone’s ability to control it there,” Adalja said. “It becomes really challenging, if not impossible, to do contact tracing in a state that has 15,000 cases per day.”
The health system’s ICU capacities in Florida are currently running at about 85% to 90%.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach are the top three counties for hospitalizations, with 3,232 people hospitalized — 42% of the 7,542 people in hospitals statewide for coronavirus.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez told CNN on Sunday that his county’s hospitals will soon reach capacity, but he said more beds can be added, including for intensive care.
Throughout May and into June, the state reopened much of its economy with some restrictions — and the number of positive cases began rising, but it wasn’t until the last week that the daily death total began rising, too.
Florida reported 514 coronavirus fatalities — an average of 73 per day in the last week. Three weeks ago, the state was averaging 30 deaths per day. Since the pandemic began in March, 4,346 people have died in Florida of COVID-19, the state says.
There needs to be a complete shutdown of non-essential businesses, said Dr. Davidson Hamer, a Boston University specialist in infectious diseases.
“People should shelter at home, like we were doing in Massachusetts in March and April,” he said. “They need to minimize any gatherings to reduce the risk of exposure, and anybody going outside has to wear a mask even in hot weather.
“It’s worrisome,” Hamer added. “There’s just so much virus circulating in the community there.”
Because of the increase in cases and the positivity rate, doctors have predicted a rise in deaths, saying the mortality rate usually increases two to four weeks later as some of those infected get sicker and eventually die.
Herald wire services were used in this report.
