60,000 more COVID cases reported in Florida

Fort Lauderdale, Florida – According to the latest CDC data posted Wednesday afternoon, Florida reported 59,487 new COVID-19 infections from Tuesday.

The state had added 51,644 cases from Monday and 85,635 over the weekend, the federal data show.

Since the start of the pandemic, Florida has logged at least 4,419,665 infections, though that number would not include at-home test results that aren’t reported to the state’s health department.

The Florida Hospital Association reports that 7,305 people are admitted across the state with COVID-19 on Wednesday, up from 6,623 just 24 hours earlier.

Florida had by far its most new cases of the entire pandemic in the final week of 2021, reporting 298,455 from Dec. 24-30. That equates to an average of more than 42,000 per day — twice what the state reported at the peak of the delta-driven summer surge in August.

The now-dominant omicron variant is believed to not bring out as severe of symptoms for many people, plus more Floridians are now vaccinated, which infectious disease experts say has played a role in keeping hospitalizations lower than their peak in the summer.

Omicron, however, does appear to be spreading more rapidly since becoming the dominant strain.

Florida’s new-case positivity rate soared to 26.5% last week, a sharp increase from 13.9% the week prior and 5.3% the week before that.