Long lines at testing sites as COVID-19 cases climb in South Florida

Miami-Dade County, Florida – Amid the spread of the omicron variant, holiday parties, and the end-of-year travel season, high demand at the coronavirus testing sites is expected on Monday.

On Monday morning, there were long lines at the sites in Tropical Park, ZooMiami, Mills Pond Park, and C.B. Smith Park.

The Florida Department of Health reported nearly 33,000 new coronavirus cases to The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the second consecutive day the state set a new record for daily case increase.

The 32,850 new cases attributed to Friday in the latest federal data surpassed the previous record of 31,758 from Thursday — amid a surge of omicron variant cases.

The previous record was on Aug. 26 with 27,669 coronavirus cases.

According to the Florida Department of Health’s weekly COVID-19 data report, released Friday evening, the statewide new-case positivity rate rose to 13.8% this week, up from 5.3% last week and 2.6% the week before.

The positivity rate in Broward County was 19.1%, Palm Beach was 17.1%, Miami-Dade was 16.6% and Monroe was 15.3%.

At 6,472 deaths out of 702,309 cases, Miami-Dade is the ninth county in the country with the highest number of deaths associated with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to an analysis by epidemiologists with Johns Hopkins University.