Florida reports an uptick in COVID cases and deaths

Florida had more than 22,500 reported new cases of COVID-19 this past week, continuing a sharp increase.

The Florida Department of Health on Friday released data that showed the state had 22,572 reported cases from Dec. 9 through Thursday. That came after 19,931 cases during the week that started Dec. 2 and 18,793 cases during the week that started Nov. 25.

Those were significantly higher totals than any other week since at least late September, according to the data. The highest total in the seven preceding weeks, for example, had been 12,366 cases during the week that started Oct. 28.

The new data also showed that, as of Thursday, a reported 83,606 Florida residents had died of COVID-19 since the pandemic started in 2020. That was up from a reported 83,201 two weeks earlier. Because of lags in reporting, it is unclear when the additional deaths occurred.