orlando us a day after it recorded the most new daily cases since the start of the pandemic florida has broken a previous record for current hospitalisations set more than a year ago before vaccines were availablethe sunshine state had 10207 people hospitalised with confirmed covid19 cases according to data reported to the us department of health and human servicesthe previous record was from july 23 2020 more than a halfyear before vaccinations started becoming widespread when florida had 10170 hospitalisations according to the florida hospital associationflorida is now leading the nation in per capita hospitalisations for covid19 as hospitals around the state report having to put emergency room visitors in beds in hallways and others document a noticeable drop in the age of patientsin the past week florida has averaged 1525 adult hospitalisations a day and 35 daily pediatric hospitalisations both are the highest per capita rate in the nation according to jason salemi an associate professor of epidemiology at the university of south floridathe hospitalisations and increasing cases have come as the new more transmittable delta variant has spread throughout florida and residents have returned to prepandemic activitiesthe recent rise is both striking and notatall surprising salemi said in an email late on saturdayfederal health data released on saturday showed that florida reported 21683 new cases of covid19 the states highest oneday total since the start of the pandemic the latest numbers were recorded on friday and released on saturday on the us centers for disease control and preventions website the figures show how quickly the number of cases is rising in the sunshine state only a day earlier florida reported 17093 new daily casesrepublican florida governor ron desantis has resisted mandatory mask mandates and vaccine requirements and along with the state legislature has limited local officials ability to impose restrictions meant to stop the spread of covid19 desantis on friday barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks when classes resume next monthfloridas democratic agriculture commissioner nikki fried who is seeking to run against desantis for governor on sunday urged unvaccinated floridians to get the shots she said she was heartened by a recent uptick in vaccinations in the statewe are already behind the curve and in a worse spot every time the numbers come out fried said at a news conference in tallahassee this surge is and will impact every single one of usthroughout florida from jacksonville to miami to tampa hospitals have become overwhelmedbarry burton the pinellas county administrator told the tampa bay times that some local hospitals are already having to divert ambulances to different locations because of capacity concernsthere has been a startling rise in the number of children with the virus at hospitals in miami many of them requiring intensive carememorial healths joe dimaggio childrens hospital in hollywood had seven patients with covid19 at nicklaus childrens hospital in miami there were 17 patients with covid19 on friday including six in the icu and one who needed a ventilator dr marcos mestre