Newly reported COVID-19 cases in Florida continued a downward trend over the previous two weeks, according to data released Friday by the Florida Department of Health.
The data showed that Florida reported 10,793 new cases from Sept. 30 through Thursday (a positivity rate of 7.1%) and 11,837 cases the previous week (7.3%).
As a comparison, Florida had 65,656 new cases during the week that started July 29. The increase in cases during the summer was driven by omicron subvariants, according to health officials.
The number of deaths related to COVID was also diminishing, with the state reporting an average of 261 weekly fatalities since Sept. 23, the lowest total since June 17.
However, Florida is nearing 82,000 resident deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic started in 2020.
The data showed that a reported 81,661 residents had died of COVID-19 as of Thursday. That was up from 81,139 deaths in numbers released Sept. 26 by the department.
Because of lags in reporting, it is unclear when the additional deaths occurred.
In other news, the CDC announced it will no longer require daily reporting of COVID cases from state and local governments. The agency, which reported cases and deaths daily since the start of the pandemic, will begin publishing weekly reports Oct. 20.
Information from News Service of Florida was used in this report.