JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The number of deaths are attributed to COVID-19 in Florida surpassed 6,000 on Monday, with more than a third of those happening during a spike that began about a month ago. While the deaths keep mounting, the daily increase in cases was the lowest in weeks.
The state health department reported another 76 deaths Monday, bringing the number of people in Florida who have died of coronavirus since the beginning of March to 6,048. About 2,400 of those have died since the beginning of July.
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Four of the deaths reported in the last 24 hours were in Duval County -- ages 74 to 91 -- bringing the total to 143. There were two additional deaths in St. Johns County -- ages 64 and 79 -- for a total of 21.
The state recorded 8,892 new confirmed cases Monday, bringing the total to 432,747. Duval County added 248, Columbia County was up another 81, St. Johns County added 64, Clay County had 39 new cases and Nassau County added 26.
Monday’s daily increase for Monday was the lowest in the state since
While the rate of positively on Sunday was down to 11%, the rate for tests over the last seven days is 11.9% -- about where it has been for about the last three weeks, but six times higher than it was two months ago just before the number of cases began spiking followed a few weeks later by the number of deaths.
The highest positivity rate in Northeast Florida on Sunday was 25% in Columbia County, where hundreds of cases of coronavirus have been identified at state prison in the last several days. Union County, where there are still more prisons, had a rate of 31.7%. Nassau and St. Johns had rates at or just about 10% and Duval and Clay counties had rates just over 8%.
New cases reported each day since March -- while still much higher than the first three months of the pandemic in Florida -- was the lowest since July 7 for the state and the lowest in Duval County since June 24.
Daily COVID-19 cases for Florida and Duval County
Monday afternoon, Gov. Ron DeSantis met with Vice President Mike Pence at the University of Miami to mark the beginning of coronavirus vaccine Phase III trials. Pence is the head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.