The 82-year-old Sarasota County resident had no history of travel.

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VENICE — Florida continues to see a big surge in coronavirus cases, making it one of the top hot spots for the virus nationally with 2,484 individuals infected through Thursday evening and a mounting death toll, including a man who died Thursday at Venice Regional Bayfront Health.

Florida health officials reported 1,017 new coronavirus cases Wednesday and Thursday, a 69% increase. The only states with more cases than Florida as of Thursday evening were New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington and Michigan, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Florida also has 29 deaths attributed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The 82-year-old man who died at Bayfront Health Thursday is the second death in Sarasota County from COVID-19. Acclaimed playwright Terrence McNally, 81, died Tuesday at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

Bayfront Health spokeswoman Julie Beatty confirmed the death in an email Thursday afternoon.

“For the last several days, our hospital has been working collaboratively with the Sarasota County Department of Health while testing was completed for a patient who presented to our facility with symptoms consistent with those associated with novel coronavirus,” Beatty wrote. “The test results confirmed the patient was positive for the novel coronavirus.”

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“Upon arrival, the patient was separated from other patients in an appropriate isolation room based on guidance from the Department of Health,” she added.

Beatty later noted it is the hospital’s only coronavirus case so far.

Steve Huard, spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County, said the 82-year-old man had no travel history and lived in Sarasota County but did not say exactly where.

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Florida health officials reported 510 new coronavirus cases Wednesday and 507 new cases Thursday. There are now 34 cases in Sarasota County and 24 in Manatee County, which also has one COVID-19 death.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital had no new coronavirus patients Thursday. The hospital has treated 21 patients for COVID-19, including nine who are still hospitalized.

As the number of cases and deaths related to COVID-19 rise dramatically in Florida, the debate over how best to contain the virus and keep it from spreading goes on.

Florida’s escalating crisis comes as the U.S. surged past China and Italy to become the planet's most infected nation, a stark milestone in the coronavirus era — and a reminder of its deadly, culture-changing effects on American life.

The Johns Hopkins University dashboard showed the U.S. with 83,507 COVID-19 infections as of 7 p.m. ET, moving past Italy (80,589) and China (81,782). More than 1,100 people have died in the U.S.

With Florida lagging the nation on social distancing requirements, public health officials, epidemiologists, health care workers, and politicians have urged Gov. Ron DeSantis to shut down the Sunshine State before it becomes the next hot zone like New York City.

Democrats in particular are piling on: “Our state is in trouble and we need to slow the spread of this virus before our health care system drowns in a wave of critically sick patients," Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also has criticized DeSantis for not taking bolder action.

“Floridians deserve science-based action from Gov. Ron DeSantis," Biden said. “While other large states continue to take strong, urgent, and sweeping action to stop the spread of COVID-19, Florida has not.”

On the other hand, Republicans are lauding DeSantis' actions and leadership: “My feeling on the ground is it’s getting better already,” Congressman Neal Dunn, R-Panama City, told the Panama City News Herald Wednesday.

Dunn — a surgeon who has specialized in advanced prostate cancer — told the newspaper he believes the current coronavirus response will help “get us back into the normal pattern of rebuilding ourselves ... People will go back to the stores, they will go back to work, they will go back to the beach.”

He expects the worst of the virus will be over by Easter, in line with President Donald Trump’s goal of reopening America for business by April 12, Easter Sunday.

Researchers from Harvard Global Health Center and Stanford have produced studies showing the dramatic impact that enforced stay-at-home requirements can have on flattening the curve of the infection's spread, buying time for hospitals to adjust to the onslaught of patients with severe symptoms.

"I'm trying to thread a needle here," DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday.

He also said he's received positive remarks from Dr. Deborah Birx, the president's Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, a task force member and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"Dr. Birx said yesterday what a thoughtful, data-driven approach Florida has had," DeSantis said. "Dr. Fauci said not every instrument is appropriate in every population in the country."

The state is already reeling from shutdowns, including the closure of bars, nightclubs, restaurant dining rooms, gyms and outdoor gatherings of more than 10. (In the city of Sarasota, gatherings are limited to nine or fewer.) The larger, more urban counties and cities have also ordered shutdowns of nonessential business, forcing folks to stay at home.

Meantime, hundreds of thousands of Floridians have been laid off or fired and have filed for unemployment. More than 3 million unemployment claims were filed in the U.S.; a $2 trillion stimulus package approved by Congress Wednesday is supposed to help relieve some of the economic burden; the U.S. House has scheduled a vote on the package for Friday.

DeSantis has supported local governments that want to impose stricter lockdowns, but has been reluctant to make that a statewide edict for fear of its economic impact.

Some parts of the state have fewer cases, he said, and issuing an order to someone to stay home and not earn a paycheck isn't appropriate "when them going to work is not going to have any effect on what we're doing with the virus."

He said he has to think of the 'second order' effect: "When New York did this, it caused thousands of people to flee. Look at California ... (that) ordered people to stay at home ... but thousands of people are on the beach, partying."

DeSantis has received criticism for not clamping down on Spring Break activities or ordering a statewide shutdown of all beaches.

Instead, he turned his focus on locking down travelers from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, forcing them to self-quarantine for 14 days or face $500 fines, complaining that those travelers are bringing the virus to Florida.

But those travelers are a very small group compared to the vast number of Floridians who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Only 125 non-Florida residents have confirmed positive, and only a handful of those are recent arrivals from the Tri-state area.

There are 2,359 Floridians known to have contracted the coronavirus, which causes the potentially deadly COVID-19 disease. It's an acute respiratory infection spread person-to-person by droplets sneezed or coughed into the air.

About half of the cases are in South Florida, made up of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. That also happens to be where 40% of all tests are being done.

DeSantis and his administrative team are also focused on getting supplies out to health care workers and first responders. More than a million N95 masks have been ordered, and more are in the state's Central Florida warehouse to be distributed where they are needed most, which has mainly been to South Florida.

"Our resources have been driven by the facts, and fortunately you’ve not had as many cases in Central Florida," DeSantis said.

Dale Ewart, acting executive vice president of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the state's largest health care workers union, has urged the governor to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

"(T)hese committed caregivers are afraid and upset that the public well-being and their own safety are not being adequately served by the state," Ewart said in a letter sent to the governor, the surgeon general, the head of the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Division of Emergency Management.

"PPE shortages have caused great concern and fear among our caregivers. Even at this early stage of what is expected to be a lengthy public health emergency, we have reached a crisis point in these shortfalls."

Concerns also have persisted in Florida — as in much of the nation — that not enough testing is being done.

In Naples, a hospital abruptly stopped a drive-through testing site this week because they ran out of testing kits.

Doctors in Winter Haven, where a quarter of the population is 65 or older, are waiting up to 10 days to get results on coronavirus tests.

And in South Miami, in a neighborhood surrounded by retirement homes, the president of a community hospital took out a $380,000 loan on his own house to secure the delivery of 1,000 test kits a week for the next few months.

Hospitals and doctors around the state say they still don’t have nearly enough testing kits and can’t get the ones they have analyzed fast enough. Health officials have completed 29,114 tests so far in Florida, while New York is doing more than 18,000 tests a day.

That lack of testing availability means the number of people infected in Florida is likely far higher than the 2,484 coronavirus cases counted by the Florida Department of Health as of Thursday evening. And it has left hospital administrators scrambling for more testing kits, buying their own laboratory equipment to process tests in house and pleading with people to stay home to slow the virus’ spread.

“We need many more specimen collection and testing sites that return results in 24 hours or even same day,” said Sarasota Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Kim Savage. “Collecting a sample on a Tuesday and then not getting test results back for a week is not effective.”

USA TODAY contributed to this report.