The Florida Department of Health announced Thursday morning the state reached a new single-day high of reported coronavirus cases with 1,698.
The state's coronavirus total now sits at 69,069, including 2,848 deaths, according to the health department.
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis began easing stay-at-home restrictions in May. Today, most of the state's businesses have opened to limited capacity while observing social distancing practices.
In all, 19 states are experiencing an uptick in new coronavirus cases over the last week compared to the prior week, according to CNN.
Florida health officials have attributed the higher daily coronavirus cases in June to an increase in testing, which has resulted in a statewide positive test rate between 4% and 8%.
"As you're testing more, you are going to find more cases and most of the cases are sub-clinical cases, and we expected that from the beginning," DeSantis said in a press conference Thursday. "We are doing 30,000+ tests a day, in terms of results on average . . . We also do have outbreaks in agriculture communities."
Over half of Florida's coronavirus cases came from four counties in South Florida, which include Broward, Monroe, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade, which has 20,548 cases and 798 deaths. Those numbers in Miami-Dade lead the state in coronavirus cases and death.
University of Florida epidemiology professor Cindy Prins said it is important to pinpoint which people in the state are actually receiving tests.
"Are we talking about people who are being tested because they have symptoms?" Prins told Miami Herald news partner WLRN earlier this week. "Are we talking about people who are being tested because now all of a sudden they have access, and they can go through the drive-thru testing, and find out whether or not they're positive, even though they don't have symptoms."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.