Florida Set New Pandemic Record On Christmas For COVID Cases
MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — On Christmas, Florida hit a new record in the pandemic for the number of COVID cases reported for a day.
On Saturday, the state reported 32,850 daily new cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The day before, 31,758 new daily cases were reported, breaking the previous record of more than 27,000 cases set in August during the height of the delta wave in Florida.
The state did not report any numbers for Sunday.
According to the Florida Department of Health from December 17 to 23, there were more than 125,000 new COVID cases statewide, with Broward County accounting for more than 25,000 of those cases and Miami-Dade County making up 52,000.
Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties are considered "high risk" for community transmission, according to the CDC.
As cases continue to surge, so are the number of people getting tested.
The current surge is being driven by the spreading of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The swelling number of virus cases created a demand for COVID-19 tests, even on Christmas Day when tests were almost as popular as eating ham or drinking egg-nog-like coquito, for some.
On Monday, Miami-Dade was handing out free at-home COVID test kits at 27 public libraries in the county. The county held its first distribution at five library locations on Friday.
There is a limit of up to three tests per household while supplies last.
For those wanting to go to a test site this week, there will be changes over the upcoming holiday weekend.
On New Year's Eve, all Miami-Dade sites have regular hours except South Dade Government Center and Tropical Park, which close at 7 p.m.
On New Year's Day, the open sites are Tropical Park, South Dade Government Center, Miami Dade College North Campus, and PortMiami.
In Broward, all test sites are closed on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
For a list of COVID testing sites across South Florida, click here.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 62,347 deaths in the state where COVID played a factor.