Florida releases 2-day total of 30,767 new COVID-19 cases

By FREIDA FRISARO Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Health officials in Florida reported a two-day total 30,767 new cases of the coronavirus and 217 new deaths on Saturday.

Florida’s Department of Health did not release numbers on New Year’s Day. The state has also chosen not to report COVID-19 cases on two other holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The two-day total brings the overall number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida to 1,354,833. The agency posted that 21,015 cases were reported on Friday and 9,752 reported on Saturday. The state’s death toll during the coronavirus pandemic stands at 22,074.

On New Year’s Eve, the state reported the highest daily jump in COVID-19 cases ever detected in Florida, with 17,192 new cases.

Also on Thursday, state health officials disclosed in a statement tweeted on its HealthyFla site that evidence of a new and apparently more contagious coronavirus strain first seen in England has been detected in a Martin County man with no recent travel history.

The state offered no new updates on the man or his condition.

Other cases of the new strain have been reported in Colorado and California.

Martin County is north of Palm Beach County, which along with Miami-Dade and Broward counties have been the state’s hardest hit region in dealing with coronavirus cases.

On Saturday afternoon, 6,701 people were being treated for COVID-19 in Florida hospitals, according to a state dashboard. That number stood at about 6,450 on Friday afternoon.

During the virus surge last summer, the number of hospitalizations reached nearly 10,000. The numbers had fallen to about 2,000 in October and early November.

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