A health care employee works at a COVID-19 testing site at Crandon Park, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Florida quickly approaching 1 million COVID-19 cases

Associated Press

Eds: UPDATES: With AP Photos. EDITS: This story has been edited to correct the number of new deaths confirmed on Saturday.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Department of Health confirmed 6,277 additional cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the state’s known total of cases to 985,297.

The state also confirmed 81 new deaths on Saturday, bring Florida’s total during the pandemic to 18,442.

Because of the Thanksgiving Day holiday the state didn’t report numbers on Thursday, opting instead to provide a two-day tally of 17,344 on Friday evening. Many testing sites were closed for the holiday.

Hospitalizations related to COVID-19 continued to rise on Saturday morning, with 3,860 confirmed cases in hospitals. That number has steadily risen since October after plateauing at around 2,000 hospitalizations daily for weeks following the summer surge of the virus.

Unlike in the spring and summer, officials have not adopted additional restrictions in Florida to prevent the virus from spreading.

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