I don't know enough about it. Is there a contract to pay the company? Is the cost of breaking the contract (or the legal justification) too expensive? There are a lot of variables that would have to be shown before I could tell you why. Including an analysis of info outside of what the Tampa bay Times would be inclined to provide.
Very good editorial in Politico on DeSantis. Long. Trigger warning. Ron DeSantis Is Very Pleased With Himself The much-criticized and combative Florida governor has survived the Covid pandemic and Donald Trump. And that makes him unique in the GOP. SUMTERVILLE, Fla.—He was right. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has been saying as much for weeks — in partisan speeches, on conservative cable, at often out-of-the-way vaccine sites around the state in quick-hit appearances as spartan as they are scripted. One recent breezy, sunny afternoon in rural central Florida, for instance, an extension cord stretched from the back of a small building here at the local community college toward a thin lectern in the middle of an open field. Up pulled a shiny silver SUV. Out stepped DeSantis. Wearing black cowboy boots and a dark, too-baggy suit, he wasted no time getting to his spot. He opened a black binder. He quickly flipped through some papers. And he launched into his numbers-laden, nasal-voiced pitch....(more after jump)
Weeks into spring break, adults under 50 spur COVID rise in Florida tourism hubs https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article250143334.html Florida’s pandemic month of March has been defined by the dueling dynamics of a mass vaccination effort focused on older people and a tourism surge to the metro areas of Miami, Tampa and Orlando, among other locales. Those forces appear to have come to a head over the last week, with a rise in cases among people under 50 after months of decline, driving an uptick in the number of tests coming back positive and cementing transmission of the virus at a fairly high level, especially in Miami. The trends played out in those three cities at the same time, and were present but not as exaggerated in other two populous South Florida counties that have a significant tourist base: Palm Beach and Broward. In older age groups, the most heavily vaccinated, cases have continued to decline. The trends in Florida’s COVID cases point to the continued exposure and lack of vaccine protection in working people under the age of 50, who have fueled the state’s economy as Gov. Ron DeSantis has invited tourists from around the country to the state, even while more-contagious variants of the COVID virus spread widely. Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida who has closely tracked the state’s COVID data, said that while the increases in cases and positivity aren’t yet at a level that is necessarily alarming, they merit watching closely and underscore a significant threat: that continued transmission among younger people could find pockets of medically vulnerable and older people who have not yet gotten a dose of a COVID vaccine. More than 70% of the people over the age of 16 in Florida have not yet been vaccinated, and about 30% of those over the age of 65 haven’t received a vaccine either, Salemi noted. DeSantis restricted vaccine access primarily to people over the age of 65 until mid-March, and on Mondaylowered it to 50. “When we see increases like this, we know we have to pay attention,” Salemi said. “We know how hard it is to protect the vulnerable when there’s an increase in community transmission.” The Florida Department of Health and DeSantis’ office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday on the case trends in the three metro areas, and whether the governor had any plans to emphasize the vaccinations of essential workers in the tourism industry. In the last week, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, and Orange counties all saw a rise in the percentage of tests coming back positive, albeit a slight one, after several weeks of that metric declining, according to an analysis by Salemi shared with the Miami Herald. Those increases appear to be driven by two weeks of rising cases in people aged 25-49. The percentage of tests coming back positive — also called positivity — is often one of the first metrics to rise when the virus starts spreading more quickly in a community. Statewide, average daily COVID cases among people aged 25-49 have hovered around 2,000 per day, a little under half of the number of daily confirmed cases per day. In Miami-Dade, that number has jumped up from about 450 per day to 550 per day over the last week, similarly about half of the total caseload. By contrast, Broward County cases in that age bracket have remained flat at around 100 per day. In Hillsborough, average daily cases in the 24-49 age bracket rose from about 120 to about 155 per day over the last two weeks, nearly half of the caseload. And in Orange County, that number has risen from about 110 to about 150 average cases per day in that time period. Beach communities seeing uptick in cases Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, took a broader look at Florida’s COVID data, concentrating on the difference between coastal tourism-driven counties and others. He concluded that the case trends are likely “related to tourism and activities in the beach communities.” “Not so much being on the beach itself, but being in the bars and the restaurants and having parties, congregating in large numbers of people,” Toner said. “That’s a recipe for creating an epidemic, so I suspect that’s what we’re seeing.” There hasn’t yet been a dramatic spike in COVID cases in South Florida. Along with hospitalizations for severe COVID, case levels had come down from a high mid-January peak, but have begun to flatten out at a fairly high level over the last month, said Mary Jo Trepka, an epidemiologist at Florida International University, at least compared to the period of quiet last fall following a deadly summer surge. Though hospitalizations have plateaued, about 550 to 600 patients are being treated for COVID-19 in Miami-Dade hospitals at any given time, according to state data, compared to about 250 patients at a time, which is where hospitalizations flattened out in October following the summer surge. Dense crowds of spring break partygoers have lingered in Miami for weeks now, Trepka added, and that is likely just starting to affect the county’s simmering COVID numbers in the working-person age bracket. “I can’t tell you what percentage is due to [more contagious] variants, relaxed mitigation, and spring break, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all of those are feeding into what is essentially our arrested drop in cases,” Trepka said. Trepka said it is likely that vaccine protection — about 70% of Miami-Dade residents over the age of 65 have received at least one dose — has shielded the older age group from the worst effects of the stubborn levels of virus transmission in the community. Toner, the Johns Hopkins scholar, said that cases continuing to decline in older age groups could also be driven by differences in behavior and work patterns. “People over 50 probably work less in close contact with other people and probably engage less in some behaviors that are likely to promote spread, so it’s a little bit hard to know,” he said. But Salemi, the University of South Florida epidemiologist who tracks COVID data, stressed that the virus has a way of finding vulnerable people anyway. He said it would be helpful for health department officials to provide contact tracing data for some of the case increases and inform the public of where transmission is coming from. “Without that data,” Salemi said, “[tourism] is certainly a good hypothesis for what we’re seeing.”
Doctor: Florida residents previously infected with COVID-19 being diagnosed with variant cases https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-variant-cases-reinfection-covid-19/35917145 But we won't know many variant cases since DeSantis refuses to report data on variant cases -- despite being sued from the media to release this information each day.
First, are all other states reporting on variant cases? Second, are these variant cases causing more hospitalizations or deaths? Because it wouldn't appear they are.
COVID variant cases. Note that Florida does not report COVID variant cases - the numbers are from labs who report to the Feds -- so the Florida variant numbers are under-reported. Despite this Florida continues its record as number 1 in COVID variant cases in the U.S. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant-cases.html As of March 22, over the last seven days, Florida has had the most Covid-19 cases in the country, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the 12th highest per capita case-rate, the fourth highest number of deaths, and the 17th highest death rate.
Again, are all other states reporting variant cases? If so, you might be on to something. if not, why not? Are they all corrupt, too? Also again, you can pick a small enough window to make any data narrative work. We'll see in time if there is a marked change that matters. Right now, the overall data doesn't show anything to be concerned about. Lastly, I suspect it will go as it did before, with Florida leading the pack, and then all the other states playing catchup.
Yes... as noted in previous articles.... Florida is the only state not publicly reporting COVID variant cases as noted in the Orlando Sentinel previously. The newspapers went to court to demand that Florida provide the COVID variant data. All of this is covered in previous posts in this thread. Orlando Sentinel sues Florida Department of Health to force release of COVID variant data https://www.orlandosentinel.com/new...0210318-nf2fylemwza4th57qm27ex66ky-story.html The Orlando Sentinel filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Florida Department of Health for allegedly violating the state’s public records law by refusing to release detailed information on the location of mutated strains of COVID-19, even as such cases rapidly multiplied. The lawsuit, filed 57 days after the Sentinel first contacted the department for the information, claims there is a “strong, immediate need ... to understand how the virus continues to spread and affect Floridians.” It claims the health department’s actions violate the Florida Constitution and asks a Leon County Circuit Court to order the release of the variant information and the release of future data “in a reasonable and timely fashion.” It is the second time in four months the newspaper has gone to court over the release of public records. “Regrettably we have to sue the state again to receive critical public health information that should be readily available for all to examine,” said the Sentinel’s editor-in-chief, Julie Anderson. “We have been more than patient in waiting for the Department of Health to fulfill a basic request for information — 57 days and counting — with no explanation as to why this information should remain secret. Floridians deserve to see the data so they can make informed decisions about their health.” The Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment. In December, the Sentinel filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis and his office for failing to provide the weekly White House Coronavirus Task Force reports in a timely manner. The governor’s office had been releasing the reports in October but stopped abruptly and without explanation in November — though many other states provided them to the media and at least one state posted its report online. In early January, the state agreed to settle that lawsuit, providing all past reports and agreeing to release future reports within two business days. It also agreed to pay $7,500 in attorney fees. The day after the settlement, Jan. 7, the Sentinel began asking about a variant strain of COVID-19, which had been detected in Martin County and was causing a surge in coronavirus infections in the United Kingdom. While the state regularly reports such data to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some Florida county officials have volunteered to share local data, Sentinel reporters sought to find out all counties that had reported cases of the variants, how many cases each county had, and whether the cases had led to any deaths. The reporters made it clear they were not looking for any personally identifiable medical information, which is protected under federal law. That email was acknowledged but the information was never provided. The Sentinel followed up several times before filing a formal public records request on Jan. 20. That request, too, was acknowledged, but no information was ever provided. Meanwhile, in early February, the Florida Department of Health did provide a one-time disclosure of much of the same information to other media outlets, but not to the Sentinel. The department did not answer a series of follow-up attempts to get the information over the next month, and calls from the Sentinel’s attorney also failed to elicit either the data or an explanation. “As variants bring potential for greater infection risks, records revealing information about their impact, prevalence and fatality throughout the State are of obvious public importance,” the lawsuit says. Since the February disclosure, new variants have been detected and the number of total variant cases in Florida has soared from 147 to 753 as of Thursday — by far the most of any state in the nation. Researchers have said the newer mutations are more contagious. So far, the vaccines approved for emergency use have been found to be effective against the strains, but some scientists are concerned that, if the virus continues to spread, future mutations may prove harder to stop. “No public records law exemption exists that would prevent the inspection or copying of data requested by [the Sentinel],” the lawsuit states. “FDOH’s delay in providing the requested records is unreasonable, unjustified and amounts to an unlawful refusal to provide the records.” The suit also seeks attorneys’ fees and expenses for the Sentinel’s legal counsel, Tampa-based firm Shullman Fugate. It does not seek monetary fines on behalf of the newspaper itself.
I do not see the part where the article, the Sentinel, or you show proof that no other state is not providing variant data. This is what I asked. I'm probably missing it. Perhaps you can highlight the part? Or quote it specifically? I see the part where it says "many other states" provide the data. That is not the same. what is "many"? 5? 30? 49? where is the proof?