Florida reports over 3,600 coronavirus cases, 61 more deaths
ORLANDO, Fla. - The Florida Department of Health says the number of known coronavirus cases in the state rose by 3,656 on Saturday, bringing the total in Florida to 643,867.
In addition, 61 more deaths were reported since Friday's update. The state death toll is now 11,811.
Florida has not seen a daily increase above 10,000 since late July. Most recently, the state saw a spike of 7,569 after a data dump from Quest Diagnostics that were months old.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered all state executive agencies to sever ties with Quest Diagnostics after they reportedly "failed to follow Florida law and report all COVID-19 results in a timely manner."
"Quest’s failure to report nearly 75,000 results dating back to April means most of the data in today’s upload – while it will have historical significance – will have little impact on the status of the pandemic today."
“The law requires all COVID-19 results to be reported to DOH in a timely manner. To drop this much unusable and stale data is irresponsible," DeSantis said. "I believe that Quest has abdicated their ability to perform a testing function in Florida that the people can be confident in. As such I am directing all executive agencies to sever their COVID-19 testing relationships with Quest effective immediately.”