CDC – NBC 6 South Florida
Two South Florida counties are starting to see an increase in COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Miami-Dade and Broward are now the only two counties in Florida that are at the CDC’s “medium” community level as of Thursday.
Case positivity in Florida was in the range of 10-15%, according to the CDC. It had dropped just under 2% statewide in early March, according to the Florida Department of Health.
CDC figures showed Florida had 5,997,998 total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, with total coronavirus-related deaths at 74,178.
In Miami-Dade the 7-day average positivity rate was up to around 15%, according to the latest county COVID-19 dashboard.
Hospitalizations in Miami-Dade are also up, with a 9.3% increase in new admissions of confirmed COVID-19 patients from the previous seven days, according to the dashboard.
COVID-19 testing in the county has also see a sharp increase in the past week, nearly doubling, according to the dashboard.
The latest Florida Department of Health figures showed Broward’s positivity rate around 10%.
Some South Florida hospital administrators said they’ve started to see slight increases in hospitalizations.
“We definitely see a small uptick that concerns us, our numbers today across the system is in the low 50’s, which is the highest it’s been in several weeks, and that actually is consistent with what we’ve seen across the entire South Florida area,” Dr. O’Neil Pyke of Jackson Health System said earlier this week.
