Florida once again exceeds 70,000 COVID-19 cases in a single day

The state of Florida (USA) recorded 71,742 new cases of COVID-19 this Tuesday, according to data released today by health authorities amid a record wave of infections and hospitalizations due to the omicron variant throughout the country.

The new report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows a considerable increase in infections, after two consecutive days with fewer than 50,000 new cases.

This is the fourth highest daily case report in Florida since March 2020, as the positivity rate for new cases statewide has risen to 31.2%.

The Florida Hospital Association (FHA) indicated on its Twitter account that on Tuesday 10,792 people were hospitalized throughout the state with symptoms of COVID-19.

In the last hours, it also emerged that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided a three-month extension to the shelf life of nearly a million COVID-19 tests that expired at the end of 2021 without the state authorities would have distributed them.

The director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, had acknowledged that the state let hundreds of thousands of rapid test kits for the virus expire between December 26 and 30 “due to lack of demand.”

In a recent press conference, the governor of the state, Ron DeSantis, was asked about it and replied that the kits expired due to a lack of demand in September, October and November.

“No one was requesting them. They would have been used, I think, if we had had an omicron at that time, but you don’t want a situation where you are wasting millions and millions of dollars, ”the Republican settled.

The United States is currently facing a record wave of infections and hospitalizations from the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The country, which surpassed one million new confirmed cases for the first time on January 3, broke a new record for hospital admissions due to COVID-19 on Tuesday, with more than 145,000 people in health centers.

According to the CDC, vaccines have allowed the risk of hospitalization with the omicron variant to be reduced by 53% compared to the delta, while that of ending up in an intensive care unit has dropped by 74% and that of death, a 91%

In the number of COVID-19 cases accumulated since March 2020, only the states of California and Texas surpass Florida (4.7 million) and in deaths from the new coronavirus it is also in third place, behind the same states, with more than 62.00 deaths, according to the interactive table of Johns Hopkins University.