DeSantis didn’t tell the full story about evidence for the FDA’s move on monoclonal antibody treatments The now-limited monoclonal antibody treatments are not lifesaving, nor are they effective against omicron. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checki...desantis-monoclonal-antibody-covid-treatment/
Remember the bragging that Florida had more folks registering Republican than Democrat...? Elderly Florida residents had their registration switched to Republican — without their knowledge: report On Wednesday, Local 10 reported that seniors at public housing in South Florida had their party registration switched to Republican — against their will and without their knowledge. "Despite the security at Haley Sofge Towers, a Miami-Dade public housing building, people with clipboards and Republican Party of Florida caps were in the hallways, door knocking," reported Glenna Milberg. "It made registered NPA Armando Selva suspicious. 'They said, 'We’re doing the renewals on the voter registration, would you like to renew?' Selva recalled. Resident Juan Carlos Salazar was not suspicious at the time. 'I didn’t do anything, but they changed the party,' Salazar said, adding he noticed, 'when they sent me the new registration.' He wasn’t the only elderly resident at the public housing to come forward and say the same thing happened to them." “People are being taken advantage of,” said Florida Ethics and Elections Committee Vice Chair Annette Taddeo, who also serves in the Florida State Senate and is running for governor. “Lots of these people don’t speak English or are elderly.” This report comes after a similar finding in December, in which an 84-year-old Little Havana resident and lifelong Democrat was reportedly "duped" by a third-party voter registration group into switching her affiliation to Republican. And as far back as 2020, another Florida woman was investigated after allegedly switching multiple voters' registrations to Republican ahead of the presidential primary, against their will. Florida Republicans recently overtook Democrats in overall voter registrations, a longtime trend driven in part by "ancestral" Democrats in the deeply conservative Panhandle region.
MAGA..... Florida Senate panel votes down exceptions for rape, incest in 15-week abortion ban TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida Senate committee voted Wednesday against including exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking in a bill that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. State Sen. Lauren Book, a survivor of sexual assault, proposed the amendment, which she said was needed to prevent further trauma on women and girls. “We are telling a 15-year-old ... that was raped that she is on the clock,” the Plantation Democrat said. The Republican-led Health Policy Committee rejected Book’s amendment Wednesday in a voice vote so there is no record of how each member voted. The 15-week abortion ban then advanced on a 6-4 party-line vote, with all Republicans in favor and all Democrats voting no.
Let's see what Ladapo's former supervisors and others had to say about his twisted incorrect nonscientific opinions. But Ron DeSantis loves this guy. Surgeon General Ladapo’s views caused ‘acrimony,’ former supervisor says In a report, the UCLA supervisor cites “concern among a large number of his research and clinical colleagues.” https://www.tampabay.com/news/flori...views-caused-acrimony-former-supervisor-says/ While the University of Florida appeared eager to hire Joseph Ladapo after he was named the state’s new surgeon general last year, a former supervisor in California seemed less enthused about his qualifications, according to records that surfaced Thursday. A supervisor at the University of California at Los Angeles offered unflattering comments about Ladapo on an employment verification form that was described in a background report prepared for Ladapo’s confirmation by the Florida Senate. Ladapo had worked as an associate professor at UCLA’s school of medicine since 2016. “Would you rehire the applicant?” the form asked. “No,” the supervisor answered. “I have recruited new faculty and do not have the resources to re-hire Dr. Ladapo.” The form asked if the employer was aware of any derogatory information. “Yes,” came the response. “Most of this is described in the public press/media.” Another question: “Would you recommend the applicant as Surgeon General of Florida and (have) confidence in his ability, honesty and integrity to perform related duties?” The answer: “No. In my opinion, the people of Florida would be better served by a Surgeon General who grounds his policy decisions and recommendations in the best scientific evidence rather than opinions.” The UCLA supervisor, who is unnamed in the report, went on to state that Ladapo caused “concern among a large number of his research and clinical colleagues and subordinates who felt that his opinions violated the Hippocratic Oath that physicians do no harm.” The person also stated that Ladapo created “stress and acrimony” during his last year and a half of employment by publishing op-eds with controversial beliefs surrounding masking, vaccines, natural immunity and lockdowns. Requests for comment from UCLA’s chief of general internal medicine, the division under which Ladapo worked, were redirected to UCLA Health spokesperson Phil Hampton, who said the organization had nothing to add. The University of Florida moved quickly to hire Ladapo last fall, a sequence of events that prompted an internal investigation by faculty to find out whether university procedures were followed. That inquiry is expected to be completed by mid-February. The senior vice president for UF Health asked other officials to “expedite this communication” in emails about Ladapo’s application for a College of Medicine position. College of Medicine dean Colleen Koch also seemed eager to welcome Ladapo, writing: “future state of FL surgeon general - we can accommodate whatever he wants in terms of meeting times!” Details of the file were first reported Thursday by the USA Today Network-Florida. Ladapo, who has supported limiting workplace vaccine mandates and shares Gov. Ron DeSantis’ views about the effectiveness of lockdowns, was moved forward by a Senate committee last week after Democrats walked out. He must still be confirmed by the full Senate. University spokesman William Levesque said in a statement Thursday that Ladapo completed the standard process candidates follow, including multiple rounds of interviews and reference checks. The university received “several outstanding letters of recommendation from UCLA,” he said. Records previously released by UF included several positive comments about Ladapo from his UCLA colleagues. Carol Mangione, chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research there, gave her “enthusiastic support” to his joining UF, calling him one of the most “productive” faculty members. Another person, Soma Wali, wrote in a letter of recommendation that Ladapo was “an outstanding colleague and friend” and conveyed her “highest degree of support for him.” She pointed to his work to use behavior economics and medicine to address health disparities in low-income populations. Wali is executive vice chairperson of medicine for Affiliated Hospitals at UCLA and chairperson of the Department of Medicine at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Florida Department of Health spokesperson Weesam Khoury said in an email that the report appeared to be part of an attempt to “smear” Ladapo prior to his Senate confirmation. “It’s unfortunate that a single comment from a disgruntled supervisor would find facilitating discussions a cause for concern, especially during such an ever-evolving medical landscape,” Khoury said. “This is not cause for concern. Doctors who were considered ahead of their time were applauded for their brilliance throughout history, but it now appears that being at the forefront of ideas and following the data is now considered a political game.” Khoury also added: “We insist you include positive comments instead of writing a one-sided smear piece.” Khoury included many of Ladapo’s achievements, such as his research on improving health disparity outcomes, serving as a columnist for Harvard Focus and receiving the Daniel Ford Award for his research in health services and outcomes. When asked about the negative comments from the UCLA supervisor, Senate President Wilton Simpson joked: “I suspect that doctor did not go to the University of Florida.” Christina Pushaw, press secretary for DeSantis, also defended Ladapo in an email. “We’re fortunate to have a State Surgeon General who is courageous enough to follow data, not politics, and to speak out about what the science actually tells us — even if it means dissenting from the dominant narrative,” she said.
Let's see how things are going with Covid infections nursing homes in Florida where there are no restrictions, no mask requirements, no requirements that visitors not have Covid, no requirements for staff vaccination... and generally no precautions to protect the at-risk put in place. Fortunately most of the residents are vaccinated so they didn't land up dead. Omicron causes record infections in Florida nursing homes https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...s-record-infections-in-florida-nursing-homes/
In some countries the Omicron cases declined swiftly -- usually more swiftly than the increase at the beginning of the wave. In other countries the decline plateaued. What caused this difference -- generally it is about having proper public health measures in place based on the community Covid prevalence. The U.K. -- where the government was under pressure to loosen restrictions -- cut Covid restrictions (despite the medical community warning them) at a time when the Omicron cases in the U.K. just started to decline. This led to a "fat tail" or "plateau" in the decline of infections. Florida is experiencing the same problem with a "plateau" in the decline of infections due to a similar problem with an inappropriate public health policy to address the highly infectious Omicron variant. What does this mean for Florida? That the decline of Omicron will take longer than needed with excessive deaths and misery along the way even as Omicron wanes. Omicron’s ‘fat tail:’ Why aren’t COVID infections falling faster? Florida’s omicron wave isn’t receding as quickly as experts had hoped https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...il-why-arent-covid-infections-falling-faster/ The omicron wave has crested, but health experts fear infections aren’t falling as fast as they had hoped. The omicron variant fed Florida’s highest COVID-19 growth rate since the pandemic started nearly two years ago. In the last weeks of December, the state infection rate doubled every 4-5 days. When it peaked in mid-January, omicron was infecting an average of more than 65,000 Floridians a day. Health experts then predicted that the highly contagious variant would rapidly burn through the state’s population and depart as quickly as it had arrived. But the omicron wave has stuck around longer than predicted, exhibiting what experts call a “fat tail” — meaning infections aren’t going down as fast as they went up. This matters because as long as infection numbers remain at such heights, COVID-19 will continue to sicken more people and strain healthcare resources for longer than expected. As of last week, COVID-19 was infecting an average of nearly 18,000 Floridians and sending more than 1,000 to the hospital each day, according to federal health data. The secret to omicron’s success is an abundance of mutations that made the variant about 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the delta variant in vaccinated households. The mutations allowed it to evade many of the immune defenses that individuals had accumulated through vaccination or exposure, and made two of the most popular monoclonal antibody treatments ineffective. It also means that an omicron infection might not provide immunity from future variants. Experts say the omicron variant appears to cause less severe symptoms than did previous strains, while still threatening the vulnerable and unvaccinated. But omicron has posed a different kind of problem through its sheer volume of cases: a record 1.9 million infections in just two months. The silver lining that experts hoped for was that the variant would recede at the same pace that it arrived. Omicron isn’t doing that. “Theoretically, epidemic waves are pretty symmetrical,” said University of Florida epidemiologist Thomas Hladish. That means cases generally go up and then down at the same rate. To illustrate this idea, think of taking the daily case rate three weeks after cases reached a peak. If the wave is symmetrical, the case rate three weeks after the peak should equal those three weeks before cases peaked. The delta wave that rocked the Sunshine State last summer fits this pattern. The wave peaked at 21,984 cases on Aug. 13, and after plateauing for more than a week, soon receded at roughly the same rate that it grew. Three weeks after the spike, delta was generating 16,500 cases a day — just 22 percent higher than expected based on the variant’s growth rate. Had the omicron variant followed this pattern, case rates would have plummeted dramatically once the wave hit its apex. When the omicron wave peaked 32 days ago on Jan. 8 at 65,306 cases, it was generating the highest average daily case rate at any point in the pandemic. If this wave was symmetrical, as previous waves have been, then by now cases should have fallen to fewer than 5,000 cases a day. Instead, Florida’s daily average was nearly 18,000 cases on Sunday, according to CDC data — nearly 270 percent higher than expected had the wave been perfectly symmetrical. Similar patterns have emerged in the U.K. and, to a lesser extent, in South Africa, where the omicron variant first was detected. In both countries, elevated case counts linger more than a month after infection rates hit their peak, according to data collected by The New York Times. Hladish offered some theories as to why omicron has lingered longer than experts predicted. One is that the new BA.2 subvariant — dubbed “stealth” omicron — could be spreading far more widely than believed. The new subvariant is about 34 percent more infectious than the original omicron strain, according to a recent Danish study. The virus can reach more people even faster than the original omicron, so the subvariant could already be replacing the variant as it fades. Florida so far has recorded five cases of the BA.2 omicron variant, all from patient samples taken in mid-January. Given how quickly the new subvariant has spread elsewhere, Hladish said, it already could account for a substantial number of cases in Florida at this point. Another possible explanation is that Floridians dropped their guard against omicron too soon. Scientists say omicron can produce milder symptoms than delta, and residents who heard that message may have stopped masking and social distancing sooner than they should have — or have stopped practicing pandemic precautions altogether. ”People will become concerned when the numbers are bad and take additional precautions,” Hladish said. “And then the peak has passed and things are improving, and they may actually cause the wave to draw out.” They may also be following the cues of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers, who do not support mask or vaccine mandates and have stymied local government officials, school districts and private employers from imposing their own pandemic rules. The virus may have burned through the population of people who weren’t taking any precautions, Hladish said, who never stopped going to bars and restaurants and eating and drinking indoors. Now omicron is making its way through whoever is left, those who wore their masks, socially isolated and tried to stay safe. University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi is concerned about omicron’s “fat tail” and slow decline. But he said it’s too soon to tell which, if any, of Hladish’s theories will bear out. He raised another possible factor: Florida’s recent chilly weather forced residents indoors after omicron’s peak, and that could have made it easier for people to continue to infect each other. But both Hladish and Salemi agree that omicron’s fat tail means Floridians will have to wait longer than expected for infections to return to safer levels. Last week the state’s positivity rate was 18 percent. There are no blanket recommendations, Salemi said. But health professionals and the CDC stress that precautions like wearing masks and getting vaccinated and boosted remain essential to preventing infection and curbing viral spread, especially now that the ever more contagious BA.2 subvariant is out there. “It’s a bad idea to let (precautions) go back to normal,” said Hladish, “it’s not the first time we’ve had to learn this lesson.”