Florida exceeded 300,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus Wednesday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The state has seen an increase in infections in the past few weeks and is now only behind California and New York in the number of confirmed cases reported.
Health officials reported 10,181 additional confirmed new cases on Wednesday. Florida took more than three months to reach 100,000 cases of coronavirus, but then it took only two weeks to arrive skip from 100,000 to 200,000.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a press conference on Wednesday said the state is doing approximately 90,000 tests per day, but said the results were taking too long to process.
“One thing I think is clear is that we need to retrieve the results of these tests in a timely manner,” said DeSantis. The governor said the state would be moving the business away from commercial labs that were unable to return test results within 48 hours, as originally agreed when the tests were expanded in early May.
Contact trackers have also said that delays in test results are hampering their work.
Florida also reported 112 additional deaths on Wednesday. This was the third time in the past seven days that it reported more than 100 deaths, according to CBS Miami. More than 4,500 people have died in the state due to COVID-19.
Florida’s director of emergency management compared the state’s response to a hurricane, but complicated by politics. “When a Category 5 arrives, no one disputes whether it was a Category 5, and in this disaster, we are arguing about everything,” Jared Moskowitz told CBS News.
DeSantis said additional medical personnel have been dispatched to Miami-Dade County, which faces some of the highest infection rates in the state. Although the beds in the county intensive care unit are full, the governor said that the hospitals in the county still have a lot of extra space that can be used for coronavirus patients, but added that the real problem is the lack of hospital workers. Health.
The Governor also announced that the state will introduce lanes at test sites specifically for those who exhibit symptoms of COVID-19. People who use those lanes will administer the swabs and their test results will be accelerated, DeSantis said.
Manuel Bojorquez contributed reporting.
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