FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The CDC’s latest data shows Florida reported 76,887 new COVID-19 infections from Thursday. The numbers were released Friday from federal metrics, which come from the state’s health department.
This surpasses the highest-daily record of 75,732 infections reported from Dec. 30.
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The state has verified at least 4,563,163 COVID-19 cases since the start of the outbreak, a figure that doesn’t include at-home tests that aren’t reported to the health department. Only Texas with 4,847,637 and California at 5,884,204 are higher in number of total cases across the U.S., according to data from the CDC.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 continue to rise in the state. According to the Florida Hospital Association, a total of 8,062 people were hospitalized due to the virus on Thursday, which was an increase of more than 750 from the previous day.
ℹ Florida COVID-19 Update for January 6, 2022
— Florida Hospital Association (@FLHospitalAssn) January 6, 2022
🚨 Total Confirmed Hospitalizations: 8,062 pic.twitter.com/JNjYnKnUys
At a press conference on Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked about more than 800,000 COVID-19 test kits that had expired in a warehouse last month, which the head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management had revealed on Thursday.
“Having a stockpile was the right thing to do,” he said.
He said that the kits expired at the end of December because there had been a lack of demand in September, October and November. “Nobody was requesting them. They would have been used, I think, had we had omicron then, but you also don’t want a situation where you’re wasting millions and millions of dollars.”
For information on where you can get a COVID-19 vaccine or test in South Florida, click here.