TAMPA, Fla. – Florida reached more than 15,000 daily cases Sunday, making it the state with the largest single-day case count of out of any other state in the country.
“Unfortunately, we’re probably going to see records being set quite frequently for the next 2 or 3 weeks or so,” USF professor Thomas Unnasch said.
Sunday, the Sunshine State recorded the highest number of cases in a 24-hour period. To put it in perspective that’s more than New York recorded at its peak when it saw more than 11,000 cases in 24 hours.
“In June it was doubling every 7 and a half days. In July it’s only doubling once every 54 days so while we’re still seeing an increase in the case numbers. We are not seeing the dramatic increase that we were seeing previously,” Unnasch said.
Unnasch believes that’s because of masks and social distancing. New models show face coverings could save thousands of lives. According to the University of Washington’s recent model update, their predicting the daily average projected deaths in the U.S. to be around 175,000 cases by October 1st. They predict the near-universal wearing of masks could keep that number down to around 150,000 cases essentially saving between 17,000 to 28,000 lives.
“If we get more people to wear the masks and if more people are conscientious about this and maintain their physical distancing we may be able to push this to wear the epidemic is no longer growing and will reach a steady, steady so that the number of cases being discharged is equally the new number of cases,” Unnasch said.