Florida on Wednesday reported 10,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to state figures, nearly six months since the state’s first case was identified.
The state reported 174 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total to 10,067 since the pandemic began.
California, New York, Texas and New Jersey are the only other states whose COVID-19 deaths have reached five figures.
Even as deaths have increased, Florida’s average number of weekly coronavirus cases has decreased.
Earlier this summer, as the state reported an average of 11,000 cases a day, state officials touted the low death rate as a positive sign. But deaths are always behind infections, and the number is rapidly increasing.
Half of all COVID-19 deaths in the state occurred in the last month.
The state has reported fewer hospitalizations in recent days. As of Wednesday, about 5,300 people were in the hospital with the virus, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.
According to state officials, Florida has now gone a full week with daily positivity rates below 10 percent. But the state health report does not report positive retests, only the initial negative test, which leads to an inaccurate lower rate.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average positive rating of seven days is 16.4 percent.
Statewide diagnostic tests have also been reduced.
On Monday, the health department reported the smallest number of tests processed since June, with 20,248. The seven-day rolling average was nearly 33,000 tests, down from a high of nearly 66,000 in July.
The COVID-19 pandemic is raging nationwide. There have been nearly 5.5 million cases in the US and 172,000 deaths to date.
COVID-19 is currently the third leading cause of death in the US, behind only heart disease and cancer, eight months after the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the country.
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