COVID-19 cases rise by 948 percent in Florida as Omicron drives huge wave across U.S. – “It’s every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA” – Gov. DeSantis attacks scientists for “bad policy”
By Alexandra Villarreal
3 January 2022
(The Guardian) – Covid-19 cases in Florida have risen by 948% in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the US.
Even as Dr Anthony Fauci – Joe Biden’s top medical adviser – cautioned the public to look at hospitalizations and not infections in order to gauge Omicron’s severity, the seven-day average for US patients hospitalized with Covid-19 increased by more than 40% during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Cases have risen by more than 100% nationally, despite tests being in short supply in many areas, and infections have doubled in the last seven days to an average of 418,000 a day, according to a Reuters tally.
In Florida, local and state officials warned that residents were waiting hours in sometimes miles-long lines just to get a test. Some accused the state health department and the governor, Ron DeSantis, of being missing in action.
“It’s every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA,” tweeted state senator Shevrin Jones.
Evidence suggests Omicron is a more mild if highly infectious variant. But it “will still do terrible damage among the unvaccinated in both the US and worldwide”, according to The New York Times. [more]
Covid cases rise by 948% in Florida as Omicron drives huge wave across US
DeSantis Blames Feds, Slams ‘Hysteria’ as Florida Shatters COVID Records
By Zoe Richards
3 January 2022
(The Daily Beast) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) blamed the Biden administration for COVID-19 woes in his state while accusing other state leaders of allowing “hysteria” to reign as they encourage mitigation measures against the virus that he claimed had little basis in sound science.
“In terms of Florida, you look what’s going on in other states, they’re letting hysteria drive them to doing really damaging things. We thought that people had learned,” DeSantis said during his first news conference in weeks on Monday after record-setting COVID-19 numbers spread across the state last month. “They’re closing schools, they’re doing things that should not be done. That is not the way you deal with this.”
DeSantis, who has routinely promoted monoclonal antibodies since former President Donald Trump credited the treatment for his recovery, said his administration was worried about dwindling supplies, even as several of the approved treatments appear to be less effective in fighting off Omicron. …
The Broward Health Medical Center news conference marked the governor’s first public event since he was criticized for appearing at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on New Year’s Eve for the Orange Bowl weeks after a crush of new infections fueled by the Omicron variant clobbered the state.
DeSantis, who established a national profile as a leading opponent against various coronavirus-related mitigation measures, also blamed the CDC for “bad policy” on quarantining healthy kids that kept some students from attending school as cases cropped up in classrooms.
The governor insisted—despite ample evidence to the contrary—that masks were largely ineffective and that kids “do not need to be doing any crazy mitigation.” [more]
DeSantis Blames Feds, Slams ‘Hysteria’ as Florida Shatters COVID Records
