COVID-19 hospitalizations jump again as Florida sets new record for single day cases

FILE - Health care workers attend a patient with COVID-19 at the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit.

Florida set a new record for single-day COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 46,923 new infections. 

New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. also hit the highest level since the start of the pandemic this week amid two highly infectious variants of the coronavirus continuing to circulate worldwide.  The country’s seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases was 265,427 on Tuesday, well over the previous record of 250,000 cases per day in mid-January.

With coronavirus cases surging, the number of Florida hospital inpatients with COVID-19 has topped 3,800, according to data posted online Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

The data said 3,836 inpatients had COVID-19, up from a reported 3,148 on Tuesday and 2,406 on Monday. Meanwhile, the federal agency said 443 Florida patients with COVID-19 were in intensive-care units, up from a reported 382 on Tuesday and 325 on Monday. 

Florida has seen a major increase in COVID-19 cases this month, at least in part because of the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus. But while hospitalization numbers have increased, they remain far below the totals this summer, when the delta variant of the coronavirus spread through the state.

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