Florida nearly reached its daily COVID-19 case record Wednesday, recording more than 26,800 new infections on Wednesday.
The 26,811 new cases reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pushed Florida's total to more than 3,832,000 since the pandemic began.
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It's also the most cases reported by the state in a single day since Aug. 26, when Florida had 27,668 new cases, a daily record.
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Florida's cases have skyrocketed in recent days, averaging over 14,600 in the past seven days, after the 7-day average had been less than 2,000 cases as recently as Dec. 9.
Since then, cases have been steadily climbing to numbers not seen since this past summer's delta surge.
Experts say the case increase is a result of the fast-spreading omicron variant. Testing has also gone up in recent days ahead of the holidays.
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Florida's COVID-19 related death toll was 62,347 as of Wednesday. It often takes days or weeks to report virus-related deaths.
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