"DeSantis for the win" 56 Florida hospital ICUs have hit capacity https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html The worsening coronavirus pandemic hit a series of somber peaks across the United States on Tuesday, renewing fears that more hospitals could be overloaded with Covid-19 patients. At least 56 intensive care units in Florida hospitals reached capacity on Tuesday, state officials said. Another 35 hospitals show ICU bed availability of 10% or less, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration in that state. Georgia surpassed 100,000 reported coronavirus cases, becoming the ninth state to pass the mark. In California, the number of hospitalizations across the state were at an all-time high and the virus positivity rate jumped more than 2% in Los Angeles. As nearly 3 million confirmed coronavirus cases were reported in the US, the need for testing has increased. That has led federal officials to set up new testing sites in Florida, Louisiana and Texas. But major diagnostic companies have said they are facing testing delays. Hospitals in Texas and Florida are flooded with critical Covid-19 patients and some local and state officials have made face coverings mandatory. Last week, the country averaged just under 50,000 new cases daily -- the highest rate recorded, and twice as high as a month ago. Texas reported more than 10,000 new cases on Tuesday, marking the highest single day total in the state since the pandemic began. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday the death rate among coronavirus patients has lowered but Americans shouldn't take comfort in it. "It's a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a livestream with Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama. "There's so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus, don't get yourself into false complacency." More than 131,200 people in the US have died from coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. An influential coronavirus model often cited by the White House increased its projections for US deaths on Tuesday and it's now forecasting more than 208,000 deaths by November. But face masks could save as many as 45,000 US lives by November if 95% of the population wears a covering in public, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, which built the model. "It's an incredibly simple strategy and intervention," Chris Murray, director of the IHME, told CNN. "It's one that will save lives, but it will also help the economy enormously because it will avoid shutdowns which will inevitably come when things get quickly out of control in some states." (More at above url)
DeSantis refuses to release true Covid-19 data. Gov. Ron DeSantis still won’t reveal true COVID-19 data — so things are probably much worse Florida reached 213,000 coronavirus cases on Tuesday, as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to encourage the state to reopen at all costs. According to CNN’s Randi Kaye, the numbers spell “trouble” for the state as it’s GOP leaders are opting for a simplistic approach to reopening. Just in the last 24 hours, they have had more than 1,600 people hospitalized for COVID,” she cited. “In the last two weeks, the hospitalization haves gone up 90 percent. The ICU bed demand has gone up 86 percent, and the ventilator usage has gone up 127 percent. The governor is saying he’s sending 100 nurses and 47 beds to Jackson Health because they need it so much. But at last check, we’ve noted that about 56 hospitals around the state have run out of ICU beds, which means they have no space for anyone who needs an ICU bed. This is really critical for Miami-Dade because they make up the 24 percent of the cases throughout the state, so they really need those hospital beds.” Miami-Dade announced that they were closing restaurants again after such a huge spike in cases. It’s unclear if the governor will allow them to continue to close or if he will block it. “About a week ago [DeSantis] promised under pressure he’d be releasing the statewide numbers,” Kaye reported. “Miami-Dade releases its own number, but the state is not releasing the full picture, so we can’t let people know what the true number is here in the state of Florida.”
Situation is bad in Texas, rapidly getting bad in Florida, and likely parts of California are in for some trouble very soon. This was the point some of us were making a few weeks ago. If you don't control the outbreak and follow the safety precautions en masse, you risk some really bad outcomes a few weeks later. Once the bad outcomes arrive, you can't stop them for a few weeks even if you change policy immediately. Assuming a flat death rate was ok despite a huge spike in infections seemed like extremely wishful thinking to me. If some good steps are taken now, maybe you get a do over in a month and get onto the same train that Canada and parts of the US have been on for a month. Canada's infection rates are dwarfed by US numbers.
"DeSantis for the win" - Isn't it time you were transparent with Florida's COVID data. Florida still not reporting how many hospitalized with COVID. DeSantis won’t say why. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244048107.html Under pressure last week as COVID-19 hospitalizations soared in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said the state would start reporting daily hospitalization data for all 67 counties. DeSantis on Tuesday, however, refused to address the fact that the state has yet to make good on its promise when asked by a Miami Herald reporter. “Obviously not everything is presented in this report but just an unbelievable amount of data is available,” DeSantis said at an indoor press conference held at Florida’s 12th COVID-only nursing facility near Miami International Airport. He did not respond to a follow-up question from CNN correspondent Rosa Flores as to why the state does not publish daily hospitalization data. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who sat next to DeSantis at the Tuesday event,ordered hospitals in the county to report patient admissions, ICU capacity, ventilator inventory and other data every day starting on April 4. The number of people entering hospitals each day for COVID-19 is key data that public health experts monitor to measure the potential strain on hospital systems and the seriousness of the disease’s resurgence. Florida is an outlier among states in not reporting the number of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19, the highly infectious respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Instead, the Agency for Health Care Administration reports daily hospital bed capacity while the state Department of Health reports the total number of patients admitted to hospitals during the course of the pandemic, not the number of people actively in a hospital at a given time. (More at above url)
Most cases in Florida in Palm Beach and Miami Dade. Palm Beach. 60% of ICU is from non-COVID patients. Miami-Dade 54% non-Covid patients. Now, for Martin county, there are only 26 beds in the whole county. And they show 88% COVID patients. But again, only 26 beds, and... ...neighboring St. Lucie is just fine with 70% of the beds occupied by nonCovid and a considerable amount of beds. But hey, that doesn't make people click your article.
Anyone who wants can go and check out hospitalizations in Florida (or anywhere else) and the ICU space used by COVID patients, etc. It's all here. https://covidactnow.org/?s=61890 I realize this won't be a juicy conspiracy about hiding data, or how the government is deliberately misleading people, etc. So I recommend you don't cancel your alerts you have with google to ensure you get your daily dosage of fear and loathing. But at least you'll be able to see the actual data and not have to worry that Florida is dying. I know that's your number one concern in life right now. Happy I could help.
The clues are on this site; my guesses follow. A significant proportion of the public isn't on board with safety precautions and taking the virus seriously as a risk. Two, there is no proper national mandate from government; Trump barely even acknowledges it's even happening. He's been lying about the data and some people believe him. Three, the opening isn't gradual enough. For example gyms are closed here but open some places in Canada ( one US poster says he's been going to his gym for weeks now if not longer ) Four is true everywhere, once you lose control of things it rapidly gets out of hand, faster then you can retrench and control it. It's a bad situation that turns tragic rather easily.
That might be true, but it's rapidly taking a turn for the worst in Florida. We don't live there so we don't know exactly why this is, just that something is flawed with the overall approach. The medical community was bang on lately; they didn't say it was a certain catastrophe they said the outbreak was on the verge of out of control and don't get too comfortable with flat or gradually declining death numbers.