Florida added 20,133 cases Thursday, an increase over the last three days, continuing an upward surge from COVID-19.
Statewide, another 400 patients were hospitalized in the last day, continuing a record-breaking surge of patients. Currently, more than 12,888 people are hospitalized statewide - and nearly 2,600 are in the intensive care unit.
“More than 90 percent of the patients that come to the ICU that are really sick, that require mechanical ventilation or almost about to require mechanical ventilation, or the breathing tube to help them breath, they are unvaccinated," said Dr. Eduardo Oliveira, who works in the ICU at AdventHealth. "The minority that’s vaccinated that comes to the ICU usually has some other problem.”
In Central Florida, the two largest hospital systems together have 1,900 COVID patients and almost 400 of them are in the ICU - most of them on ventilators to help them breathe.
“We’ve seen a significant number of pregnant women," Oliveira said. "That’s something that’s somewhat different from the first wave. Overwhelmingly they were unvaccinated, and they tend to stay longer in the hospital.”
The breakthrough cases are most often in cancer patients and organ transplant patients who have suppressed immune systems.
Cumulatively in the last week, Florida has recorded more COVID-19 cases and deaths than anywhere else in the U.S.
