Every one of your memes are fakes. If you think I was serious that Florida data was good because we eat alligator meat, then you're a bigger fucking idiot than I had ever thought. But Florida IS better than the entire country - evidenced by the CDC chart. You'll not mention anything there, because it makes you look like a tool.
Yes, Florida is "better" than the rest of the country. They are the lead state in Covid death rates over the recent months. So much "winning" for DeSantis.
Yeah, because they were the first to go through the latest wave. Duh. For someone who pretends to be so smart, you are remarkably stupid. And they still manage to hang on to the number 9 spot in deaths per million with states like NJ and NY (who are now just going through their latest) already way ahead of them in a bad way. But DeSantis!!
Let's take a look at a typical DeSantis supporter... “Get me (Gov.) DeSantis!” she shouted, according to the arrest report. Villager who started drinking at Christmas Parade jailed hours later after golf cart crash https://www.villages-news.com/2021/...ade-jailed-hours-later-after-golf-cart-crash/ A Villager who started drinking Saturday morning at The Villages Christmas Parade was jailed after a golf cart crash hours later at Lake Sumter Landing. Karen Frances Hackett, 63, of the Village of Liberty Park began drinking at the annual holiday parade at The Villages Polo Fields, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. The Illinois native and a friend continued drinking throughout the day and at 7:30 p.m. Hackett was driving a golf cart when it hit the curb near TooJay’s Gourmet Deli on Canal Street at Lake Sumter Landing. The force of the impact knocked both women from the golf cart. The passenger suffered scraped knees and was vomiting. She was transported by ambulance to a local hospital. EMS personnel attempted to assess Hackett’s condition, but she began yelling and cursing, including profanity aimed at President Joe Biden. “Get me (Gov.) DeSantis!” she shouted, according to the arrest report. She also turned her anger at EMS personnel and shouted, “I’m not vaccinated!” Hackett was transported to a local hospital where she was “belligerent” toward a nurse. Hackett was diagnosed with “alcohol intoxication.” Due to her condition, she was not asked to perform field sobriety exercises. However, she provided breath samples that registered .249 and .246 blood alcohol content. She was arrested on charges of driving under the influence and disorderly conduct. She was ticketed on a charge of careless driving. She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $2,000 bond.
Are you going to start posting weekly threads with "DeSantisTARD blah blah blah"? That's effectively what this is Oh, and she gets a vote. Your desperation is palpable.
So today we have news reports of three Villagers arrested -- all Republicans -- for voting fraud in the 2020 election (each voting twice) plus this ding-bat DeSantis-loving drunk driver. That's quite the following the governor has.
Right, because not a day doesn't go by where some idiot on the left or right isn't arrested for or found guilty of doing something. And this is all the fault of whoever they voted for. You're a dope. On a similar note, its wonderful to hear you admit just how obsessed you are with Florida, DeSantis and the population in this state.
Delta caused Florida’s worst COVID wave. What will omicron bring? https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article256440951.html At least three cases of the new, little-known-about omicron variant have been reported in Florida, including one in Miami-Dade, just a few months after the state began recovering from the devastating delta wave experienced over the late summer and early fall. The new variant for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was first detected in South Africa and Botswana last month and as of Tuesday had been detected in 70 countries and 34 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Since only a small percentage of positive tests are sequenced, experts say it’s safe to assume it is everywhere. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday that omicron is spreading rapidly and is likely to become the predominant variant in the United States “on the order of weeks.” Early evidence and preliminary data suggest that while the omicron variant is likely more transmissible than delta, it also seems to be causing milder symptoms. A newly released report from the CDC examining the 43 U.S. omicron cases concurs with the hypothesis that the new variant is more likely to evade COVID vaccines or antibodies that have developed from a previous infection. Thirty-four of the people infected had completed the primary series of COVID vaccines and six had tested positive in the past. “It’s really limited data, so we have to be really cautious in how we express this,” said Mary Jo Trepka, an infectious disease expert and professor at Florida International University. How is omicron detected? Variants are detected through genomic sequencing — or the study of a virus as it evolves and mutates. Scientists have found the number of mutations (about 50) in the omicron variant surprising. Most of the mutations seen in omicron are in the spike protein, the part of the virus that binds to cells in the body. Some of the mutations had been seen in prior mutations of the virus — many in different lineages of delta. It’s common for viruses to mutate. The original version of SARS-CoV-2 that was first sequenced in early 2020 has been gone since summer of 2020, according to William Lee, vice president of science at Helix, a population genomics company working with the CDC and local health departments on sequencing COVID-positive PCR tests. Since then, different variants have taken over including alpha, beta and, most recently, delta. In the United States, delta is still the dominant variant, making up almost 97% of samples sequenced according to data released Tuesday by the CDC. Since it has been the dominant variant for some time, it would be expected for future mutations to have some sort of lineage or sub lineage to the delta variant, according to experts. “But if you do the phylogenetic analysis and you draw the evolutionary tree, omicron is absolutely not descended from delta,” said Lee. “It’s different enough from different lineages that we’ve seen in the past — and that’s part of why it’s so surprising.” Although many of the mutations have been seen in different lineages throughout the evolution of the virus, Lee said scientists have never seen all of them in the same lineage, with new mutations as well. Concern about omicron evading COVID vaccines The initial hypothesis is that the more mutations there are, the more likely it is that you have some sort of “fitness advantage” that scientists hadn’t seen in the virus, said Lee, referring to the ability for the virus to escape immunity. “That’s what everyone’s concerned about and what we’re trying to track down.” Omicron was detected in 3% of samples sequenced by the CDC this past week across the U.S. In Denmark, where every positive PCR test is sequenced, COVID-19 cases caused by the omicron variant have doubled every other day, and experts say it will become the dominant variant in the country this week. A study released Tuesday from South Africa found that the variant was more contagious than delta, but caused milder symptoms. However, South Africa has a relatively young population and high immunity from prior infections, so that could play a factor in the findings. What happened during the delta wave? The delta variant caused Florida’s worst wave of the coronavirus from late June through mid-October. During that time, more than 20,000 Floridians died of COVID — that’s a little under one-third of all Floridians who have died of COVID-19 since March 2020. As of Tuesday, 62,073 Floridians had died of COVID, according to data published by the CDC. “Delta left quite a bit of devastation in terms of impact on people and their families,” said Trepka. On Sept. 1, 2021, the seven-day average of people dying each day peaked at 403 — that was almost twice as many people dying each day than had died during the summer 2020 wave. But at a time when vaccines were readily available and mitigation techniques such as masks, handwashing and social distancing were known, delta’s impact was largely avoidable, according to Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology with the USF College of Public Health who has been tracking the data since the beginning of the pandemic. “When you’re getting to 400 deaths a day when vaccines are available, you start to look at it and say ‘My God, this wave did not need to be anywhere near this bad,’ ” Salemi said. A lot of the severe illness and deaths could’ve been prevented by encouraging vaccinations and mitigation methods like wearing masks and social distancing, according to Salemi. While cases were peaking this summer, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did not implement any mitigation measures like he did during the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. In April 2020, DeSantis issued a stay-at-home order for non-essential workers after then-President Donald Trump extended the White House’s social-distancing guidelines. In March 2021, the governor canceled all fines related to COVID rules and in September he threatened local municipalities that wanted to impose vaccine mandates. In late July, he banned mask mandates in public schools. While the delta variant became the dominant variant in the state causing surges in hospitalizations and deaths, DeSantis pushed monoclonal antibody treatments for infected individuals to seek out after testing positive. Last Tuesday at a press conference in Oldsmar in Pinellas County, DeSantis suggested he would tackle omicron the same way, without lockdowns or mask requirements. “In Florida, we won’t let them lock you down. We won’t let them restrict you,” he said. “We’re not going to let them impose mandates. We’re not going to let them close the schools. We are going to protect your freedom to make your decision.” In a statement in response to the Herald’s questions about omicron and sequencing, DOH communications director Weesam Khoury reiterated the state’s monoclonal antibody stance as a treatment to COVID and mentioned vaccines as a preventative measure. DeSantis has touted monoclonal antibody treatment to treat COVID in its early stages and prevent hospitalizations. But Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which produces one of the monoclonal antibody treatment drugs the state uses, said in a statement in late November that the drug could be less effective against omicron. Sotrovimab, a similar drug made by British company GlaxoSmithKline that has been used in Florida, is effective against omicron, according to data released by the company last week. Lack of public-facing data One of the biggest problems in studying the virus in Florida is the lack of data available to the public, including data on variants, breakthrough infections and vaccination status for cases and deaths, according to experts. DOH does not publicly release data on variants, but through the threat of a lawsuit from a consortium of media companies including the Herald, it provides biweekly reports that include how many variants and lineages have been detected by its three state labs and some private labs. Public health experts say, however, these reports are not useful as they do not indicate how many samples were sequenced in each period. The department also used to publish case line data, which included details regarding each case of COVID detected in Florida, but it has not updated that data since 2020. In a statement, the department said it still collects the data that DOH epidemiologists have access to. “The Department collects data that is relevant to an epidemiological investigation. We collect vaccination status, including the number of doses and date of vaccination, for all cases when that information is available,” said a portion of the statement. Experts like Salemi say having access to case line data that include vaccination status on each case would allow researchers to better understand the situation and make the appropriate recommendations. “In order to really know what’s driving spread, who needs to be concerned and why, we need to know how many cases are happening among people with different vaccine-acquired immunity and about reinfections,” he said. A University of Florida report released last week revealed that researchers faced external pressure to destroy COVID-19 data and described “barriers” to accessing, analyzing and publishing the numbers. UF professors were also told not to criticize the governor or the state’s COVID policies in the media . Data on reinfection would also be beneficial to understanding whether variants like omicron are good at evading immunity, as is expected. Currently, the department only includes people who have tested positive once in its public-facing data, meaning if a person tested positive in May 2020 and then tested positive again in June, they would still only be counted as one case. Cases ticking up Cases have been rising across the country for a couple of weeks, overwhelming hospitals in states like Michigan. Florida, experts say, had fared well until recently since it experienced the delta wave in the late summer. But in the last two weeks, cases have begun to tick up slightly in the state, a change from the stagnant case rates Florida had seen over the last two months. On Tuesday, the state’s seven-day average for cases added each day was 2,305 — the highest it has been since mid-October and about 58% higher from the average just two weeks prior. It’s still unclear whether this recent uptick has anything to do with the omicron variant. Since Miami-Dade County began doing its own sequencing with Nomi Health with positive PCR samples dating back to Oct. 31, the delta variant has been detected in all 746 samples. What next? Though public health experts don’t yet know the extent to which this variant is more transmissible, they agree that individuals should be taking the same precautions as before and that Floridians should learn from the devastating delta surge. “We don’t have to look that far at all in the rearview mirror for a lesson,” Salemi said. Though the CDC still defines “fully vaccinated” as an individual who has received one dose of Johnson & Johnson or two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, Salemi and many other scientists nationwide say it is time for that to change. Last Wednesday, the same day Pfizer released a study that said three doses of their vaccine was able to neutralize omicron, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview on CNN that it is “a matter of when, not if,” the definition will change. “I don’t think anybody would argue that optimal protection is going to be with a third shot,” he said. About 9.3 million Floridians have received one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or two doses of Pfizer or Moderna. Another 3.4 million have received boosters, according to DOH. A Herald data analysis recently revealed that Miami-Dade’s vaccination numbers are likely an overestimate. Regardless of what omicron brings, experts say individuals should follow the same protocols that have been in place since the beginning of the pandemic, at least until more is known: Get vaccinated (and boosted if you’re able), wear a mask, and keep social gatherings outdoors. “I’m hopeful that omicron isn’t going to be dangerous or as likely to cause severe illness ... but if it is, we need to prepare for that,” said Salemi.