Florida Hospital Capacity Remains Steady Despite over 50k New Cases in Less than a Week

Hospital capacity in Florida continues to remain steady, despite the addition of over 50,000 new COVID-19 cases over the span of five days, data from the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration shows.

Florida’s Department of Health added 9,230 cases of the novel coronavirus to the state’s rolling tally on Tuesday, bringing the total to 441,977 — up over 50,000 from the 389,868 cases reported Thursday. Despite the daily addition of thousands of cases, hospital capacity statewide continues to remain steady.

On Thursday, statewide hospital bed availability stood at 21.58 percent. A Tuesday afternoon snapshot showed that availability grew slightly, with 21.93 percent availability. Similarly, Thursday’s statewide availability for adult ICU beds stood at 15.78 percent. On Tuesday, that percentage grew slightly, to 15.95 percent.

While the state has reported 24,917 resident hospitalizations for the coronavirus, specifically, the Agency for Health Care Administration’s data shows that 8,975 statewide are currently hospitalized for the virus. Over 2,000 of those hospitalizations are in Miami-Dade County, and over 1,000 stem from Broward County — two Florida counties hit hardest by the virus. One-quarter of all of Florida’s cumulative cases stem from Miami-Dade alone.

“An ICU is not a fixed product,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said last week, addressing concerns over ICU availability. “If there’s expanded need then they can expand those types of services.”

“There is capacity, obviously to deal with COVID, but it’s also important to note, COVID-19 is just a fraction of what these hospitals are doing every day,” he added.

Dr. Simone Gold, an ER doctor who spoke at Monday’s viral “White Coat Summit” in the nation’s capital, also addressed concerns over hospital capacity nationwide, assuring the public that “we are not overwhelming the health care system.”

“We have to remember that the whole purpose of locking down was not to overwhelm our health care system,” Gold said. “Ok, we cannot forget that.”

“We cannot just keep changing the definition and keep moving the goalpost,” she added:

Florida reported 6,117 coronavirus-related deaths as of Tuesday. The mortality rate has remained steady, at 1.4 percent.