Miami-Dade is a hot COVID mess, but we have company all over Florida. Thank DeSantis https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article253697263.html From Miami to Jacksonville, the tragic trail of new deaths from COVID-19 is heartbreaking. Police officers, young parents who leave behind children and people from all walks of life are dying, only this time with the realization, when it’s too late, that they should have been vaccinated to prevent hospitalization and death. Or, with the realization that, had they properly worn a mask, a lesser viral load of the deadly delta variant might not have killed them. The course of the coronavirus didn’t have to play out this way. But this is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida, and denial of the most basic mitigation tool, wearing a mask, is the rule of law. And rejecting masks often goes hand-in-hand with vaccine hesitancy, a fatal combination. We’ve learned nothing in this state with low vaccination rates from past surges of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Terrible death statistics Florida is averaging 227.6 deaths a day attributed to COVID-19, another terrible statistical marker in this latest round of the war against the virus. By comparison, 98 people died in the Surfside condo collapse that shook our state and made national and international headlines. By further comparison, 8.7 people a day die in traffic accidents in Florida. How can there not be more outrage, more consciousness? “Florida becomes first US state where the daily deaths in current wave have exceeded previous waves,” Dr. Vincent Rajkumar, a Mayo Clinic cancer researcher and professor of medicine, tweeted Sunday. Retweeting the doctor, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava added: “It doesn’t need to be this way — get vaccinated.” If only people would listen, but half the population is checked out of the conversation. As an unvaccinated family member told me: “I’m just over all of it, to be honest.” I understand the feeling, but denial isn’t what the times demand. They call for more vaccination and less lament. Why is this happening in Florida? Rajkumar explains in simple terms on Twitter what has happened in Florida — and why. The delta variant was one of the factors “not in our direct control.” But what was under our control? Vaccination — and only half of Florida vaccinated “is simply not enough.” As of Aug. 22, 11,073,889 people — 51.56% of Florida’s population — had been fully vaccinated. In this scenario, “Relaxing mask requirements and preventing mask mandates is not good policy,” Rajkumar said. “What’s different in Florida is that relative to the vaccination rate ... the relaxation of distancing and masking was disproportionately high. Leaders expressed disdain for masks and mask mandates,” he tweeted. “The total number of people unvaccinated is high. And hospitals got overwhelmed.” This new round of COVID hospitalizations and deaths, even more than the first, is DeSantis’ legacy, the result of his refusal to put public safety above politics, instead, turning mitigation of a health crisis into an issue of freedom and patriotism. DeSantis likes to flaunt his own reckless, maskless behavior and, although the governor got vaccinated, he kept it secret until his spokesperson, hounded by the media, finally confirmed it. “Politicians want to force you to cover your face as a way for them to cover their own asses. That’s just the truth,” DeSantis said last week. “They want to be able to say they are taking this on and they’re doing this even though it’s not proven to be effective.” But that’s not what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association say. He has misled the public so many times, I’ve lost count. Most tragically, the governor boasted of a premature victory over COVID that all us watching new variants mutating in other parts of the world — and paying attention to the science of virus evolution — knew wasn’t going to last unless all eligible Floridians were vaccinated. And when things began to go south again, he invented himself a scapegoat: immigrants at the border and President Biden, a false GOP talking point circulated on Fox News. But the medical community, scientists and journalists know that Florida’s emperor is wearing no clothes. Elected by a 0.4% margin and catering to the ultra-right base with his policies, DeSantis gambled with COVID-19 in Florida for political gain — and he lost. He failed the elementary science lessons. In plain English: His COVID policies are killing Floridians.
How many people in that picture are over 65 to you? Not that many...40-50 is not old... What about teachers then in the schools... are they young?
Hey Ron, you know you have the power to stop COVID from killing your constituents, you just choose not to and play the blame game instead.
A repeat of the same news every day. New day, new record. Great job of killing off your constituents, Ron. Florida Sees Record-Breaking 26,203 New COVID-19 Cases on August 24 https://wdwnt.com/2021/08/florida-sees-record-breaking-26203-new-covid-19-cases-on-august-24/
Floridians Are Turning on Ron DeSantis as Covid Deaths Hit Record High The pandemic is now worse than it’s ever been in Florida. The state’s governor is playing politics https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...es-deaths-ron-desantis-mask-mandates-1216694/
Well finally some good news.... Florida hospitalizations drop in one healthcare system and they can resume some outpatient procedures. This may be the peak -- aligning with some university models. Hopefully it is the local peak in Florida for this wave. COVID hospitalizations may have peaked for this wave, says AdventHealth’s chief clinical officer https://www.orlandosentinel.com/cor...0210826-zbn66teo5nhzxi3u27wxzuszva-story.html
Of course, when you look into it, you see that the 900 was over 4 weeks but hey, why lets facts get in the way of hysteria? Topping: