Thirty-four percent of the patients hospitalized Friday in Florida had COVID-19, the highest percentage in the nation, according to data posted on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.
Florida had 17,198 inpatient beds filled by people with COVID-19. Overall, 86 percent of the state’s hospital beds were occupied. Hospitals report information to the federal government daily on the number of patients with COVID-19 in their facilities.
The delta variant of the novel coronavirus is responsible for a dramatic increase in hospitalizations. Florida hospital executives have stressed the hospitalizations are mostly occurring in unvaccinated patients.
Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Health posted a weekly report Friday that said Florida has topped 3 million COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started in early 2020. As of Thursday, the state totaled 3,027,954 cases, an increase of 150,740 from a week earlier. Also as of Thursday, the state had 42,252 deaths during the pandemic, an increase of 1,486 from a week earlier, according to the report.
This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2021.