ST PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) — Florida health officials say the state has reached a grim milestone: more than 200,000 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since the start of the outbreak.

State statistics released Sunday show an additional 10,000 confirmed cases. The highest number of confirmed cases in one day came Saturday, when more than 11,400 cases were reported. More than 3,700 people have died.

About 43 per cent of the cases are in three counties: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Sunday on ABC News This Week that the high numbers of positive tests both in his county and in the state are “extremely worrisome.”

“It’s clear that the growth is exponential at this point,” he said. “Our county closed down the beaches for the July Fourth weekend in the hopes that all these rules will have an impact — a positive impact. It takes a little bit of time to find out exactly but we’re obviously very closely monitoring hospitalizations and we’re very, very closely monitoring the death rate, which our lagging indicators that give us the impression that we have to take much stricter — much stricter measurements — measures.”

Suarez had the virus in March.

Florida’s death count is the ninth highest in the country overall and the 27th highest per capita at 17.4 deaths per 100,000 people.

There were 451.9 new reported cases per 100,000 people in Florida over the past two weeks, which ranks second in the country for new cases per capita.