Florida reported an additional 12,288 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, as the number of hospitalized patients continues to decrease, according to federal data. The state’s seven-day “moving” average as of Wednesday was 14,297 cases a day. As a comparison, the seven-day average on Aug. 8 was 20,084 cases, according to data posted on the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
Pressure on Florida hospitals has also started to ease after they were inundated by patients as the delta variant of the coronavirus spread throughout the state. On Thursday, 13,034 patients with COVID-19 were in 259 Florida hospitals, information posted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows.
On Wednesday, 13,452 beds at 235 hospitals were being used for patients with COVID-19. AdventHealth said in a news release that the number of COVID-19 patients at its Central Florida hospitals was down to about 1,120 after being as high as 1,700 in August. The news release said some staff members who had been redeployed to care for COVID-19 patients have been able to return to jobs in the operating room and other areas of hospitals.
“We’ve effectively dropped about 30 to 40%,” Sanjay Pattani, associate chief medical officer of AdventHealth Orlando, said in a prepared statement. “We’re on the backend of the peak.”
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This article appears in Sep 8-14, 2021.