So much "winning" in DeSantisLand... COVID-19's strain on Florida hospitals worse than most states, CDC says State health officials are offering no answers on why or how to tackle this https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story...s-worse-than-most-states-cdc-says/9376140002/
“It's all just political posturing,” Link said. “ It makes no sense and only hurts the taxpayer. The fact that the better good for the health of the state is so wrongly politicized is insane. The crazies have taken over, really.” Florida county residents angry after they're hit with multi-million dollar fine for having mandates Local officials in Florida are continuing to clash with the Florida Department of Health over COVID vaccine mandates. Now, the latest ordeal has escalated in Leon County, Fla. According to The Daily Beast, the county was hit with a $3.57 million fine for implementing COVID vaccine requirements for all of its employees. Per the report, Leon County, home of Florida's capital city, Tallahassee, was fined "over its 'blatant violation' of Florida’s controversial 'vaccine passport' law that prohibits governments and businesses from requiring residents to show proof they were vaccinated against the coronavirus." The Florida Department of Health's notice also claims the county violated the law a total of 714 times by requiring all municipal employees to get vaccinated. Fourteen employees were also terminated for their refusal to get the COVID vaccine. With the announcement of the fine, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) criticized the county to imposing requirements on employees. “It is unacceptable that Leon County violated Florida law, infringed on current and former employees’ medical privacy, and fired loyal public servants because of their personal health decisions,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement announcing the fines. “We will continue fighting for Floridians’ rights and the Florida Department of Health will continue to enforce the law. We’re going to stand up for Floridians’ jobs, stand up for Floridians’ livelihoods, and stand up for freedom.”
Florida announces further reduction in providing Covid data... Now will only put out information every two weeks. Since they already cut the reporting of hospitalizations in DeSantisLand and now are cutting the reporting to a mere twice per month or so -- at this point the DeSantis administration might as well report nothing at all. Waiting two weeks to see if Covid cases are rising or falling -- with no associated hospitalization data is next to meaningless. Florida limits COVID data to every 2 weeks, state says via meme Department of Health officials announced the change via Twitter, using Vince McMahon and cat memes https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...-data-to-every-two-weeks-state-says-via-meme/ Florida officials have again rolled backaccess to the state’s COVID-19 data, and will now only release key pandemic metrics such as the number of people who have been infected, died and vaccinated once every two weeks instead of every week. The state did not announce the new policy in any traditional fashion, such as issuing a press release or an official statement via its social media accounts. Instead, Florida Department of Health spokesperson Jeremy Redfern made the announcement at 4:31 p.m. Friday using his personal Twitter account. The tweet included a popular meme featuring World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahon reacting to the news. The Florida Department of Health then retweeted Redfern’s announcement at 7:49 p.m., adding a cat meme and noting that it’s “no longer season 1 of the pandemic.” It is the second time in nine months that the state has reduced the frequency that it shares the latest pandemic data with the public. The state said it will continue to send daily data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posts them online in conjunction with other states. “Creating multiple reports is time consuming, and we are working to shift our focus onto the endemic stage of COVID-19,” Redfern said in a Monday email to the Tampa Bay Times. However, Florida officials have also criticized the CDC for repeated errors posting the state’s data. County level deaths went missing, cases were misreported and, the state says, testing numbers were mislabeled. The New York Times reported last month that the federal agency does not report critical data including hospitalizations and deaths by race and vaccination status. When the state changed its data policy in June, the announcement was made by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ spokesperson. Public health messaging should be clear, transparent and packaged in a way to reach as many people as possible said Joshua Scacco, a professor of political communication at the University of South Florida. Releasing the news via meme on a Friday evening “is the exact opposite of what a health department should do,” he said. “Memes on Twitter aren’t intended to be taken as official statements,” said Department of Health spokesperson Weesam Khoury in an email sent to the Times on Monday. She elaborated further in another email: “While some may think using this style of language is not orthodox of government, I would argue that we should welcome it into the public sector. Social media is the most effective platform to distribute information quickly to our constituents we serve.” The state had not issued an official statement as of 5 p.m. Monday. “It’s a curious choice not to further explain (to the public) how these numbers are going to be reported and why this change is being made,” Scacco said, “especially in a public health crisis when people continue to die of this virus every day.” Once, experts praised Florida for its data transparency. The state released data every day and set up a website that allowed the public, experts and journalists to easily analyze the trajectory of the pandemic when the virus started spreading in 2020. Then state officials shut down its online COVID-19 database and switched to weekly reports in June 2021, weeks before the delta variant appeared in Florida. At the time the state also shut down its daily COVID-19 data website and stopped issuing other reports, including on infections in prisons, schools and long-term care facilities. The weekly reports are only available as a PDF, making it difficult for reporters and researchers to collect and analyze outbreaks and trends of the infectious coronavirus. Florida has recorded 5.8 million infections and 71,860 deaths during the 2-year pandemic, according to last week’s state report.
DeSantis "winning" again by appointing a QAnon and pro-Insurrection nutcase to the Florida Board of Education. DeSantis Appoints Unqualified, QAnon-Flag-Waving Radical To Florida Board Of Education https://www.wonkette.com/desantis-a...-waving-radical-to-florida-board-of-education Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continued his assault on public education last week when he announced his appointment of local kook Esther Byrd to the state Board of Education. Esther Byrd is the wife of GOP state Rep. Cord Byrd, an attorney who specializes in gun laws. She’s president of the Republican Women's Club of Duval Federated and ran a failed campaign for a Neptune Beach City Council seat in 2020. Esther Byrd has publicly defended the Proud Boys and supported the QAnon conspiracy. The Byrds were even photographed on a boat flying the QAnon flag. What was once dismissed as the GOP “fringe” in 2020 has been steadily normalized. She’s also posted inflammatory statements on Facebook about the January 6 insurrection. “ANTIFA and BLM can burn and loot buildings and violently attack police and citizens,” Byrd wrote last year. “But when Trump supporters peacefully protest, suddenly ‘Law and Order’ is all they can talk about! I can’t even listen to these idiots bellyaching about solving our differences without violence.” She continued, “In the coming civil wars (We the People vs the Radical Left and We the People cleaning up the Republican Party), team rosters are being filled ... Every elected official in DC will pick one. There are only 2 teams… With Us [or] Against Us.” This clearly charming person is probably more qualified to serve as the state’s surgeon general than DeSantis’s current pick, but she’s not the best choice for the Board of Education. It seems like all the rightwing bellyaching about “radical leftists” on school boards was a smokescreen so Republicans could pack the boards with partisan hacks. The Florida GOP thinks the QAnon lady’s just great. (More at above url)
DeKKKSantis doesn't want those Blacks in Congress... Ron DeSantis eyes court fight over Florida congressional map to reduce minority seats https://www.tallahassee.com/story/n...map-reduce-minority-seats-florida/7067747001/
The census showed a movement of 4 seats from Blue to Red Yet at this point it looks like Blue will gain 14 seats No one can beat the Democrats at the game of Gerrymandering