Florida COVID-19 update: Case count, Florida State Parks close, DeSantis announces more actions

Florida state health officials reported more than 150 additional coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19 cases this morning reporting a new total of 1171 cases– 1096 confirmed cases in Florida residents and 75 cases in Non-Florida residents.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The COVID-19 death toll has risen to 14.

Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Hillsborough counties have reported the most cases with 267, 258, 89 and 73 cases, respectively.

Sunday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced more actions on COVID-19:

  • The federal testing site at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami opened to the public today and those 65 and older who have symptoms of COVID-19, in addition to the first responders and health care workers who started testing today.
    • This site is federally supported, state managed, and locally executed.
    • Partners involved in setting up this site include the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Florida Department of Health, the Florida National Guard, Miami-Dade Police, Miami-Dade Fire and FedEx.
  • There are two additional federal testing sites:
    • The Jacksonville site at TIAA Bank Field, Lot J, opened Saturday and collected more than 280 people on the first day.
    • The Orlando site at the Orange County Convention Center is set to open on Wednesday.
  • At this time, there are more than 18,000 hospital beds available statewide, including nearly 1,700 adult intensive care unit beds.

Finally, the Department of Environmental Protection announces that at the direction of Governor DeSantis and to successfully uphold CDC guidance to maximize social distancing and avoid gatherings larger than 10 people, DEP will close all Florida State Parks to the public effective Monday, March 23.

DEP has taken many measures to continue providing resource recreation at our State Parks during this time, such as limiting operating hours and reducing visitor capacity at parks with high visitation. Unfortunately, this has not resulted in the reductions needed to best protect public health and safety as Florida continues to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

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