As average daily COVID-19 case increases hover just under 3,000 over the last week, Florida is moving closer to a number cited by health experts as a standard for reopening.
Many experts say safely moving forward with reopening should be done when the state dips below a positivity rate of 5% when averaged over a two-week period.
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When a massive data dump this week from a national lab is removed from the equation, Florida is averaging about 5.6% positivity over the last 14 days for new cases in Florida residents, according to data from the state health department.
On Friday, Florida’s percent positivity for new cases was 5.99%, according to data reported Saturday. Florida added another 3,656 cases to reach 643,867 confirmed cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began.
Removing outlier data from the massive Quest labs data dump on Tuesday, Florida continues to average just under 3,000 new cases a day over the last week.
Statewide, Florida added 60 deaths to bring the state’s total to 11,963 since the pandemic began.
Among those deaths were two Duval County women -- ages 58 and 76 -- and two Nassau County women -- ages 65 and 88.
Jacksonville has now reported 270 deaths related to coronavirus since the pandemic began, and Nassau County has reported 24.
County-by-county breakdown for Northeast Florida
Florida health officials announced Tuesday before releasing the daily update that the state has severed ties with Quest Diagnostics, one of the country’s largest health testing providers, after the company failed to submit timely results of 75,000 COVID-19 test results, some dating as far back as April.
Gov. Ron DeSantis called the company’s failure “egregious.”
The company blamed the delay on “technical issues,” saying in a statement that “the issue has since been resolved.”
The company said there were no unusual delays in notifying people of their test results.
Florida and Duval County’s daily COVID-19 case increases
Notwithstanding Tuesday’s outlier jump in cases from the Quest dump, Florida’s daily case increases seem to have leveled off somewhat as school districts across the state settle in to the new school year and long-term care facilities prepare to welcome visitors for the first time in months.
Recommendations from a panel tasked with coming up with new rules for long-term care visitation include allowing every resident to designate two “essential” caregivers and two “compassionate” caregivers who would have access to the residents.
In terms of general visitation, residents will be allowed to designate up to five general visitors, though no more than two will be allowed to visit at a time.