ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As of Friday evening, 6,994 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 across 56 of Florida's counties, according to newly released data from the Agency of Health Care Administration.
The data shows a county-by-county breakdown of hospitalizations, with the lowest county having zero hospitalizations and the highest reporting 1,578 in Miami-Dade.
This new data does not differentiate between how many ICU versus standard hospital beds those seeking treatment at Florida hospitals occupy at this time.
The Top 5 counties for COVID-19 hospitalizations include:
- Miami-Dade: 1,578 hospitalizations
- Broward: 969 hospitalizations
- Palm Beach: 606 hospitalizations
- Orange: 478 hospitalizations
- Duval: 439 hospitalizations
Those numbers may not surprise many as three are South Florida counties originally labeled as the state's hot spot. Phased reopening in the area was delayed as the rest of the state charged forward with reopening efforts.
Duval County was also an area recently named by the White House Coronavirus Task Force as one of the large metropolitan areas it was tracking as cases continue to climb in the Sunshine State.
This latest data dump related to the coronavirus comes after 10 Tampa Bay has been asking the state for virus-specific hospitalization data since May. Until today's release, all asks went unanswered.
In the chart above you can see the current status of hospitalizations. The chart runs alphabetically across the counties reporting hospitalization data.
The 10 counties that make up the greater Tampa Bay area account for 944 of the state's hospitalizations. Following this county-by-county breakdown:
- Citrus: 17 hospitalizations
- Hardee: 0 hospitalizations
- Hernando: 51 hospitalizations
- Highlands 32 hospitalizations
- Hillsborough: 210 hospitalizations
- Manatee: 84 hospitalizations
- Pasco: 92 hospitalizations
- Pinellas: 201 hospitalizations
- Polk: 138 hospitalizations
- Sarasota 119 hospitalizations
That means we hold 13.4 percent of the state's coronavirus hospitalizations.
Prior to Friday, it was hard to track just how many people were hospitalized with COVID-19 at any given point in Florida. Since the pandemic began four months ago, the state said a total of 17,167 residents have been hospitalized as of Thursday morning.
July 9's data from the Florida Department of Health showed the second-highest single-day increase in newly-reported cases at 11,433. The state has yet to report a day in July where the number of newly-confirmed cases was fewer than 6,000.
In the past when asked about coronavirus reporting data transparency, Gov. Ron DeSantis called continued questioning on the topic a "conspiracy bandwagon."
Now, with this additional data made available to the public, some of those questions might get answered on their own.
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