With cases spiking around the state, Florida’s Miami-Dade County has become the national epicenter for the coronavirus, an official with the area’s Jackson Health System said in a news conference yesterday, according to CNN.
“What we were seeing in Wuhan — six months ago, five months ago — now we are there,” said Lilian Abbo of the Jackson Health System.
The county has reported daily new coronavirus cases in the thousands for the last week, with hundreds of patients in Intensive Care Units. It reported 32 deaths today, the highest in Florida.
CNN reports that 69% of the county’s ICU beds are filled, and ventilator usage is at 109% capacity, meaning the county had to either obtain machines from other locations or hospital staff had to adapt ventilators to use on multiple patients.
Eight hospitals in Miami-Dade County have already reached ICU bed capacity, the county reports.
According to data from the IHME model, the entire state of Florida has only 1,696 ICU beds available.
Three days ago, Florida reported more than 15,000 new cases of coronavirus, far exceeding the worst day’s reporting by New York State when the public health crisis began.