Florida sees a more than 50% drop in new COVID cases

MIAMI, FLORIDA - AUGUST 30: Healthcare workers at a 24-hour drive-thru site set up by Miami-Dade and Nomi Health in Tropical Park administer COVID-19 tests on August 30, 2021 in Miami, Florida. Miami-Dade County and Nomi Health opened the round-the-clock testing site in response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the state, driven predominantly by the Delta variant. In the last week of September and early October Florida has expereinced a 50% drop in new COVID cases, the largest decrease of the 50 states. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FLORIDA - AUGUST 30: Healthcare workers at a 24-hour drive-thru site set up by Miami-Dade and Nomi Health in Tropical Park administer COVID-19 tests on August 30, 2021 in Miami, Florida. Miami-Dade County and Nomi Health opened the round-the-clock testing site in response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the state, driven predominantly by the Delta variant. In the last week of September and early October Florida has expereinced a 50% drop in new COVID cases, the largest decrease of the 50 states. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Joe Raedle

After weathering one of the worst COVID outbreaks in the last two months, Florida is now ranked 44th in new cases per capita, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the past two weeks the state has experienced the largest drop in cases in the U.S. with new cases falling 53% over the past two weeks, according to a Fortune analysis of New York Times data. Although the state still has about 4,000 daily cases, it’s recording only 19 daily average cases per 100,000, according to the New York Times.

From August to mid-September, Florida was at its worst in terms of COVID. At the outbreak’s peak, the state was recording a seven-day average of 445 deaths per day and a seven-day average of about 17,000 hospitalizations per week.

Now, new reported cases and hospitalizations are both down to near record lows as the state’s vaccination rate has risen and some people have gained temporary immunity after being infected. Florida has fully vaccinated 58% of its total population and 67% of people ages 12 and up.

New reported cases have also dropped across the South, which was once the epicenter of several major outbreaks. Alabama and Mississippi have also seen a drop of about 50% in cases over the last two weeks.

Despite the decrease in cases, Florida has not come out of the pandemic unscathed. The state recently passed New York in total deaths from the virus, making it the state with the third most deaths behind California and Texas. Florida is ninth in the nation in terms of death per 100,000 people.

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