Florida has passed another record-breaking death toll from COVID-19 for the fourth day in a row.
There are currently 470,386 positive cases and 6,843 resident deaths in total. There were 257 resident deaths and 9,007 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.
In Palm Beach County, there are 33,274 positive COVID-19 cases with 815 total deaths.
On July 28 there were 577 confirmed new cases. On July 29 there were 506 and on July 30 we saw 573.
Many dispute the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases as a result of increased testing. Yet, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, does not see this as the situation.
“If you do more testing, you will see more cases,” he said. “But the increases that we are seeing are real increases in cases, as also reflected by increases in hospitalization and increases in deaths.”
In Palm Beach County, there are 2,580 hospitalizations due to COVID-19.
“We hope that by the time we get into late fall and early winter, we will have in fact a vaccine that we can say that would be safe and effective,” Fauci said. “One can never guarantee the safety or effectiveness unless you do the trial, but we are cautiously optimistic this will be successful.”
Fauci reassured lawmakers by saying “that all safety precautions will be taken by the FDA before the vaccine is made available to the public, encouraging all Americans to take the vaccine,” according to a CNN article.