Florida reported 21,683 new cases on Friday, breaking a daily record for the entire pandemic, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state’s previous one-day record was more than 19,100 in early January, according to CDC data. As the highly infectious delta variant has spread around the U.S., new infections in Florida have skyrocketed over the last month, from a low near 1,000 new daily cases last month.
Florida, the third most populous state, now accounts for about one in five new virus infections in the entire U.S., making it the country’s new epicenter for the outbreak.
The state reports publicly once a week, but more often to the CDC, and on Friday reported 110,477 cases for the previous seven days. Weekly cases in the U.S. were almost 545,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg.
The positive test rate of 18.1% is more than twice the national average of 7.8%. Florida currently has the highest daily hospital admissions of the entire pandemic, according to CDC data. New admissions rose more than 50% from the previous week, the data show.
