AARP: COVID case and death rates in Florida nursing homes nearly doubled over holidays https://www.news-journalonline.com/...es-fl-nursing-homes-nearly-double/6718621002/ The COVID-19 death and case rates among Florida nursing homes nearly doubled from the previous reporting period, reflecting the anticipated aftermath of the holiday season, according to AARP's most recent update to its coronavirus dashboard. The dashboard, which was developed in early October, shows how the state fares compared to the national average at five points during the pandemic: August; September; October; November; December; and January. The newest set of data, released on Feb. 9, encompasses numbers from Dec. 20 through Jan. 17. “AARP Florida is committed to fighting to protect nursing home residents and their loved ones, safeguarding their rights to quality care. We are approaching the one-year anniversary of the first-known coronavirus cases in nursing homes, yet the rates of cases and deaths remain startlingly high," said AARP Florida State Director Jeff Johnson in a press release. "The devastation this pandemic has brought to nursing home residents and their families has dramatically illustrated that fundamental reforms must be made in Florida nursing homes and to the long-term care system. We cannot lower our guard.” Florida reported 405 nursing home deaths — or 7.2 deaths per 1,000 residents — according to the release. This represents an increase from 4.4 deaths per 1,000 residents in the January report, which covered Nov. 15 to Dec. 20. Positive cases for residents rose from .38 to .64 per 1,000 residents and COVID-19 positive staff rose from .45 to .64 per 1,000 residents, according to the report. The analysis also showed that Florida’s COVID-19 nursing home numbers are still better than the national average for all five categories of measurement. But, the rates for deaths and cases are still some of the highest Florida has experienced in AARP’s dashboard, with significantly more new cases than were reported in summer and fall 2020. About the dashboard The dashboard, which is updated every four weeks, was created using data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the AARP Public Policy Institute in collaboration with the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio. The goal is to identify specific areas of concern at the national and state levels in a timely manner. The federal data does not include coronavirus cases among residents or staff of assisted-living facilities, group homes and other congregate elder-care facilities, which are included in the Florida Department of Health’s daily coronavirus update. Nursing homes are defined as facilities for older adults who require 24-hour supervision and medical care, while assisted-living and other elder-care facilities house mostly independent seniors who require some day-to-day help. The dashboard was created to help improve transparency on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected vulnerable older Americans, according to the AARP press release about the new data. Moving forward Last week, Johnson urged members of the Florida legislature to stop efforts that would give nursing homes and other long-term care facilities immunity related to COVID-19 through Senate Bill 74. The bill itself would limit the types of lawsuits families can pursue against long-term care facilities. The bill states this will help deter unfounded lawsuits against health-care providers based on COVID-19-related claims. “The death toll from COVID-19 in our nursing homes is a national disgrace," Johnson said in the release. "More than 9,000 Florida long-term care residents have already died — alone and afraid, without family by their sides. In numerous cases, facilities may have contributed to those deaths and other harms by their lack of care or abuse." The bill passed through the Judiciary Committee Wednesday with a 6 to 4 vote, according to the Florida Senate. "Infection control and adequate staffing have been enduring problems in nursing homes — even before COVID-19 emerged as a top killer of older Floridians," Johnson said. "There’s no room for destructive legislative proposals, such as Senate Bill 74, which gives immunity to nursing homes, letting the industry off the hook and ensuring they can never be held accountable." AARP continues to call on Florida legislators and community leaders to better protect residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities from COVID-19 by: Prioritizing regular and ongoing testing and adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for residents and staff — as well as inspectors and any visitors. Ensuring quality care for residents through adequate staffing, strict regulatory oversight, and access to in-person formal advocates, called long-term care ombudsmen. Rejecting COVID-19 related civil liability immunity for long-term care facilities. “Disregard for Florida’s nursing home residents and their loved ones is appalling," Johnson said. "At a time when consumer confidence in Florida’s long-term care system is at an all-time low, lawmakers would make things worse by letting nursing homes off the hook."
Gov. DeSantis attacks Biden for giving a damn about the health of Floridians https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article249177000.html If his recklessness weren’t so deadly to Floridians, cherubic-faced Gov. Ron DeSantis might seem amusing when he gets angry. For instance, when he recently chastised journalists: “You can whiz on my leg but don’t tell me it’s raining.” More accurately, DeSantis pretends to be angry on camera. It helps him deliver mini Trump-like rants against the media — and this week, against political opponents trying to help Florida deal with a new complication of the COVID crisis. Listening to DeSantis on any COVID-19-related subject is experiencing what the former president might have sounded like had he possessed a vocabulary: big, scientific-sounding words like “the winter respiratory cycle” thrown around, but, still, small thinking. Throw the politics of coronavirus into the mix, and a DeSantis-Biden war looms over the highly contagious and lethal mutations of COVID-19 in Florida. On the table: what strategies should be adopted to stem outbreaks of the new variants. So far, the governor’s strategy seems to be to hop around the state announcing the distribution of vaccines to selected constituents like GOP party faithful Bay of Pigs veterans and red Florida customers of Publix, big donors to his reelection campaign. Short on solutions, he has plenty to say about President Joe Biden. DeSantis doesn’t like science-driven Biden and his administration floating the idea of domestic travel restrictions for states like Florida that need protection from the spread oftheB.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the United Kingdom. Three coronavirus variants are circulating in the United States; the two others are from South Africa and Brazil. Biden & travel restrictions Fresh from mask-less partying in the middle of a pandemic at the Super Bowl in Tampa, DeSantis attacked Biden for giving a damn about the health of Floridians. Any attempt to restrict travel to or from Florida “would be unconstitutional,” said the governor, who installed useless checkpoints on I-95 at the Florida-Georgia border that caused huge traffic jams but didn’t stop fleeing COVID-infected New Yorkers from entering the state. “Any attempt to restrict or lock down Florida would be an attack on our state done particularly for political purposes,” DeSantis said. “We will not back down. If anyone tries to target us, we will respond swiftly.” So says the 24-7 political governor, who, immediately after he said this, added the falsehood that while Biden wants to impose restrictions on Floridians, he’s allowing immigrants to pour across the southern border unchecked. “If you think about it, restricting the right of Americans to travel freely throughout our country, while illegal aliens pour across the southern border unmolested, would be a ridiculous, but very damaging farce,” DeSantis said. “So we will oppose it 100 percent. He added: “It would not be based in science. It would be a political attack against the people of Florida.” Those are the kinds of antics and fighting words that send his xenophobic voter base straight to his campaign’s cash register. The Biden administration has been holding COVID discussions, as any governing body should in times like these, and one of the participants told McClatchy about the travel-restriction idea. Repeat: The talk of travel restrictions was a so-called trial balloon floated from the White House for feedback. What the White House did do this week was appoint a diverse COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force that includes a South Florida representative, student advocate Vincent Toranzo. The national initiative will seek recommendations to ensure that the response to a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted minority communities “has equity at its core.” Needless to say, DeSantis, who is proposing harsh right-wing legislative initiatives to quash dissent, isn’t a fan of concepts like social justice, either. Partisan fight over COVID Rather than starting a partisan fight with the new administration whose policies, unlike the previous one, are rooted in science, DeSantis should be engaging Democrats to obtain a bigger share of the vaccine pie for Florida. He should be telling Floridians that, now more than ever — with more than 200 confirmed cases of B.1.1.7 — we need to mask up. He also should be modeling the behavior, but he’s the state’s proud anti-masker-in-chief. “But how the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?” he complained to Politico when asked about going without a mask at the Super Bowl. “Come on. I had to watch the Bucs win.” As usual, the governor insults our intelligence and downplays the coronavirus, which has infected at least 1.8 million Floridians and killed 28,382. Wearing a tightly fitted surgical mask — or layering a cloth one on top of the surgical mask — can increase by 96.5 percent the protection to the person wearing it and to others, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in guidance released this week. But DeSantis’ inaction derives from his blind devotion to one Floridian — the ex-president — and has consequences. COVID is on the rise in Florida, despite the pretty picture DeSantis paints and his indulgence in back-patting himself in press conferences. He would rather play the role of antagonist to please Trump and shut down whatever Democrats propose — even life-saving measures — at our expense. But what else can we expect from a governor who cares more about your right to party than addressing a more lethal COVID variant? With DeSantis at the helm, we’ve always been on our own in Florida. It fits his true nature to attack Biden for giving a damn about the health of Floridians.
"DeSantis for the win" -- "What can we do with all this worthless hydroxychloroquine I stupidly purchased?" edition What's Florida doing with thousands of hydroxychloroquine doses? 'It was a real problem,' Dr. Norman Gaylis says https://www.wptv.com/rebound/whats-florida-doing-with-thousands-of-hydroxychloroquine-doses It was a promising COVID-19 treatment last year that is now sitting in stockpiles across the country. Hydroxychloroquine did not turn out to be the miracle drug once touted by the former president and sought out by Florida's governor. Instead, it has become a commodity for which the state has little use. Last April, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he had secured a million doses of hydroxychloroquine from Israel at no cost to the state. The Republican and close ally of, at that time, President Donald Trump hosted a roundtable with doctors who supported the use of the drug. The discussion came despite very little and often anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine was beneficial in the fight against COVID-19. "I've reached out to physicians and just asked, 'Hey, what’s the deal with this? Should we get more of it?'" DeSantis told journalists at the meeting. "We want to, obviously, give patients the opportunity to have a recovery." The promotion by governors like DeSantis and the former president quickly created a run on the treatment, frustrating Florida rheumatologists. "It was a real problem," said Dr. Norman Gaylis, a Florida physician with the American College of Rheumatology. "We don't have enough time in the day to answer how much it frustrates me with the way this has been handled." Gaylis said April and May were difficult times for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients who need the pills to fight disability and pain. Those he treats were unable to fill prescriptions, forced to ration what they had and find sources from outside the country. Meanwhile, states had little use for their stockpiles as research piled up suggested the drug did little to treat COVID-19 and raised safety questions. "My guess is the majority hydroxychloroquine sitting in states' storage facilities are basically going to end up being thrown away," Gaylis said. Some states indeed continue to sit on large supplies of the medicine, which has a two-year shelf life. Oregon has yet to use any of its 50,000 tablets. Texas has about 92% of its million doses remaining. Both are working to find a use. Oklahoma officials are trying to return about $2 million of the pills to their supplier. In Florida, about 980,000 doses were on hand as of June. Officials haven't been able to provide an updated total but said they're working to distribute them. State emergency management has partnered with the Lupus Foundation of America. Together they're donating supplies to doctors, avoiding a prolonged dose shortage here. Dr. Michael Bubb, a principal investigator in the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network of Lupus Therapeutics, said Florida's market has stabilized after the summer panic. "I haven't had a patient express concerns in recent months about the availability of the drug," Bubb said. Going forward, however, the University of Florida rheumatologist hopes the state will better consult experts before putting any future strain on the market. "It's ideal to have the physician experts consulted on these issues," Bubb said. "The real issue is that medical knowledge is not easy. Looking at data, particularly observational data, rather than randomized controlled data, really needs to have a nuanced eye." The Food and Drug Administration still approves the use of hydroxychloroquine for lupus, malaria and rheumatoid arthritis. The agency pulled the drug's emergency use authorization for COVID-19 last June due to a risk of heart problems. It continues to discourage use for virus treatment outside of hospitals.
Hey GWB-Frauding, you claimed Florida was deadmeat and was going to be the worst. In deaths per million they are now 26th of the 50 states, while the states with the most extreme lockdowns are way higher than Florida. Not only to mention, Covid OVERWHELMING affects older people, and Florida has one of the oldest populations. Your response has always been 'well you just wait'. We have been hearing that for close to a year now. You are running out of time. Now that Biden is in office, the sensationalism of Covid is over. As soon as Biden's 1.9 trillion pay-off to his cronies is finalized, the media will have no reason to keep the hype alive.
Florida Is a COVID Nightmare—Even for Vaccinated People In a state defined by pandemic recklessness, getting a shot is no silver bullet. https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-is-a-covid-nightmare-even-for-vaccinated-people By the end of next week, Nancy Krinick expects to get her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. But the 67-year-old legal secretary from Sunrise, Florida, plans on keeping her daily routine of avoiding virtually all human contact even after she’s fully inoculated. The same goes for her sister and her brother-in-law, both of whom are over 65 and got their first shots together with her at Marlins Park in Miami, Krinick told The Daily Beast. “With these new variants, we are still worried,” she said, adding, “It seems like this is never-ending.” She will continue to get her groceries delivered to her home via Instacart, avoid dining out, and put off visiting her daughter in Knoxsville, Tennessee, until a majority of the U.S. population has been immunized, Krinick said. As extra-contagious mutations of the coronavirus gather strength like a hurricane churning off the Atlantic coast, Floridians like Krinick see no sign of respite. While they have yet to issue formal guidance on congregating by vaccinated people, state and national health experts have assured the general public that the vaccines are effective—even, if perhaps less so, against the variants surging nationwide. But in a state with a long history of pandemic recklessness and where mask mandates are nonexistent, vaccinated Floridians don’t want to risk getting infected by going out in public. Here, getting a shot offers little more than a modicum of relief. Thanks to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ongoing approach of forcing his state to be wide-open for business and pleasure, surges in community spread seem virtually inevitable. Last weekend, despite warnings from state epidemiologists, a host of potential superspreader events took Tampa by storm, punctuated by legions of Buccaneers fans, a majority of them maskless, celebrating the home town’s victory when the Super Bowl wrapped up. “Everytime I see superspreader events like that, yes it does scare me,” said Mark Zeitlin, a 70-year-old from Boynton Beach, Florida, who’s gotten both his shots. “It’s not only Tampa. It’s happening everywhere.” Glenn Charnizon, a 66-year-old from Delray Beach, Florida, who also got both doses, said he and his wife won’t be dining out, traveling, or going to the grocery store for a “long, long time.” “Just because we got vaccinated doesn’t mean we can’t get COVID,” Charinzon said. “We’re not taking any chances until 70 to 80 percent of the population is vaccinated.” Meanwhile, the Biden White House is reportedly considering new restrictions on domestic travel with huge implications in Florida, which accounts for more than a third of all documented U.S. cases of the B-117 variant, also known as the highly contagious U.K. variant. Researchers are also monitoring for any Florida outbreaks of other variants from Brazil and South Africa that have been found elsewhere in the United States, but not—officially—in the Sunshine State. DeSantis’ response has been to chastise reporters for allegedly downplaying the coronavirus dangers of social justice protests and celebrations of Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump, striking a defiant tone regarding any travel restrictions. At a Thursday press conference, DeSantis said, “We will oppose it 100 percent. It would not be based in science. It would purely be a political attack against the people of Florida.” A spokesperson for the governor’s office did not respond to email requests for comment. Seniors who spoke to The Daily Beast said DeSantis has been deliberately obtuse in what passes here for containing the pandemic. “The governor of this state is out of control,” said Charnizon. Krinick, the legal secretary, added: “DeSantis? Not a fan. I don’t think he’s doing anything.” To be sure, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, recently said getting both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine is the best way to stay ahead of the new mutant variants. And Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, a Florida International University infectious disease professor, told The Daily Beast that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are highly effective in preventing people from getting sick—including when it came to the U.K. variant. Still, given the basic limitations of any vaccine, and the proliferation of variant cases in a state that has stood out for pandemic absurdity, Floridians can’t let up any time soon. “It is possible people who have gotten their second dose can still catch the virus,” Trepka said. “They can be asymptomatic and become infectious. But we are very concerned about more variants popping up because we may get one that vaccines don’t work on.” Due to the high degree of community spread in Florida, vaccines alone will not end the pandemic, she argued—even if the shots have amounted to DeSantis’ sole strategy of late. “Even if you are one of those who have gotten full doses, you are still around a lot of people who have not been vaccinated,” she said. “We need people wearing masks, doing physical distance, and avoiding large crowds. Many people are following it religiously and many are not.” The fear and anger at the dangers posed even after vaccination are not confined to the senior citizens DeSantis has prioritized above virtually all others. In the labor and delivery department of North Miami’s Northshore Medical Center, health-care workers who have been fully inoculated are still on guard, said one nurse who asked for anonymity because she did not have authorization from the hospital to speak to the media. “Because of the new variants and people not being safe, I am still wearing a mask when I go out and I am still not going to family functions because I know I can’t trust some family members who are out in the streets and not taking proper precautions,” she said. The terrifying reality that Florida is a living petri dish for coronavirus mutations means seniors like Carla Golembe will just keep isolating themselves even though she’s gotten both her shots. “The variants are scary,” the 67-year-old artist from Delray Beach, Florida, told The Daily Beast. “We don’t know much about them. Just when we think we are beginning to understand this virus, now there are more curveballs.” In two weeks, once her body has built up full immunity, the only major outing she has planned is a trip to her dentist, she said. “Maybe on a quiet afternoon, I will go into a grocery store, double-masked,” she said. “I hope my husband, who also got both his shots, and I can get together with other friends who have been fully vaccinated. We want to hang out again, but at a distance and outdoors, of course.”
All gwb has is propaganda, because all of the data show that Florida is doing well AND they opened up early and kept their economy in place as well as they could. That really steams people like GWB who believe in the Narrative.
‘This Is All Political’: DeSantis Slams Biden For Allegedly Allowing Illegal Aliens Into U.S. Without COVID Test While Considering Domestic Travel Restrictions Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) slammed President Joe Biden during an interview on Sunday for allegedly allowing illegal aliens to enter the U.S. without being screened for COVID-19 while reportedly considering implementing domestic travel restrictions between states. DeSantis said that potential domestic travel restrictions placed on Florida by the Biden administration would amount to a “political attack against Florida” and “would be unconstitutional.” “Florida schools have been open the whole school year,” DeSantis said. “Every parent in Florida has the right to send their child to in-person instruction, every worker has a right to work and earn a living and put food on the table, and every business has a right to operate.” “And, consequently, our state is doing very well compared to these other states in terms of education and economy. But we also have 26 other states and the District of Columbia that have higher per capita COVID mortality than we do. We have 28 states that have higher per capita cases than we do for the bulk of the pandemic,” he continued. “And if you look right now, states that are always held up by people in Biden’s administration, like New York, have way higher per capita patients hospitalized for COVID right now. So, there’s no basis in medical, there’s no basis in economics, there’s no basis in reality to do this, except to punish a state that is doing it better than what his experts have recommended.” When asked about reports indicating that the Biden administration is not screening illegal aliens for COVID-19, DeSantis said that it was “all political.” “So, he’s opening the border. He’s letting illegals pour in. They’re not doing any COVID tests. They’re just coming into the communities,” DeSantis said. “We have no idea what type of COVID or other things [they] may be carrying, but yet he wants to potentially make you take a test if you just get on an airplane and fly from one American city to the next, or he wants to prevent travel to the state of Florida?” “This stinks to high heaven. It is a huge contradiction. And you can’t square wanting [to] open … borders for illegal aliens, but then also restricting U.S. citizens from basically traveling around the country as they see fit,” DeSantis said. “And I think the American people see the hypocrisy in that.” Great interview - trigger warning for Narrative pushers.
AARP Dashboard Updated Feb 11th. Nursing Home deaths per 100 residents. Now, help me out because as I look at the mortality rate, I don't see a state better than Florida. Not one. But maybe I'm missing something. Can anyone see a state any better? How about for overall cases? Well, for cases, Florida isn't #1. In fact, if I could right, it is number 12? So not the best by far, but also not even close to the worst. But when it comes to deaths (the most important stat) they are the best (lowest).