For the second time this week, Florida has broken its record for the highest single-day increase with 3,207 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday morning.
Thursday’s number is 15% higher than the previous one-day high of 2,783 reported Tuesday.
As of Thursday, Florida was up to 85,926 total cases and COVID-19 3,061 deaths.
There were 43 new coronavirus-related deaths reported Thursday morning across the state, including nine in Miami-Dade County, five in Broward and six in Palm Beach County.
While concerns are growing regarding whether or not the state could become the new epicenter, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state was moving ahead with plans to reopen further, citing hospital vacancy and chalking up the higher daily case numbers to increased testing.
However, new data shows hospitals across the state have filled most or all available beds in their respective intensive care units.
Numerous Florida medical facilities reported dwindling ICU bed availability on Thursday, with several reporting no availability at all, according to the latest report published by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Palm Beach County was among those statewide regions where the availability of beds was most scarce. An accompanying report from AHCA shows about 75 percent of available hospital beds statewide are currently occupied.
Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties have reported two of Florida’s most severe local virus outbreaks.
