TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A little more than a year after the novel coronavirus showed up in the state, Florida has topped 2 million cases of COVID-19.
With the addition of 5,105 reported cases Saturday, the total hit 2,004,362 confirmed cases since the pandemic started, according to the Florida Department of Health.
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The milestone was another reminder of the toll that COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, has taken on the state, killing at least 32,713 Floridians and sickening countless others. Another 624 non-residents have died in the state.
Duval County added 133 cases on Saturday to reach 91,342 total COVID-19 cases with 1,263 deaths since the pandemic began.
During the past three months, the state has rushed to vaccinate people, with about 4.82 million receiving at least one dose -- including more than 3.1 million seniors, who are particularly vulnerable to the virus. Gov. Ron DeSantis has pinned his COVID-19 strategy on vaccinations, including allowing all people ages 50 and older to get shots starting Monday.
“We’ll see how it goes next week, but I think we will definitely be opening it up to everybody, certainly before May 1 and maybe much sooner than that. So stayed tuned there,” he said during a news conference Friday.
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But even with the vaccinations, Florida has added thousands of additional cases and dozens of additional deaths a day. The United States has had about 29.75 million confirmed cases and 541,000 deaths because of the virus, according to tracking data from Johns Hopkins University.
Florida’s first two reported cases were announced March 1, 2020, involving residents of Hillsborough and Manatee counties. That day, DeSantis issued an executive order directing state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees to declare a public health emergency to try to control the spread of the disease.
Nine months later -- Dec. 1 -- Florida surpassed 1 million cases and, with daily cases rising through Christmas, New Year and beyond, it looked like Florida was on pace to surpass 2 million cases a month ago.
But the infection rate and cases began to fall in late January, and it took more than 3½ months to hit the dubious milestone.
While the state has seen ebbs and flows of infections during the past year, the overall trend was steady increases in cases and deaths, with clear surges in the summer and even higher daily increases between Thanksgiving and mid-January of this year.
And while the March increases we’re seeing are well off those peaks, our daily case numbers are running nearly double where Florida reporting in the early fall.
Throughout the pandemic, heavily populated Southeast Florida has grappled with the most cases. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties together account for 768,862 cases, or about 38% of the state’s total.
But cases have been reported throughout the state, with Orange and Hillsborough counties each also topping 115,000 cases, Department of Health numbers show. Duval County has seen more than 91,000 cases
The largest number of cases have been found in people ages 25 to 44. But that is juxtaposed against the highest death tolls, which have occurred in people 65 or older. Seniors account for about 83% of Florida resident deaths.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida has the third most cases in the United States, after California and New York -- the two states with higher populations than the Sunshine State.
While Florida’s case-rate corresponds to our population, 28 smaller states have a higher rate of cases per 100,000 residents, according to CDC data. North and South Dakota, Arizona, Utah, Tennessee and Utah each have seen more than 12% of their population test positive over the last 13 months.
Florida has had 9.2% of its residents test positive -- a slightly larger percentage than Texas and a slightly smaller percentage than California.