Florida hits Covid daily case record as Gov. DeSantis downplays outbreak
27 July 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Florida broke its COVID-19 daily-case record on Monday, exceeding the previous peak in January 2021. Hospitalizations hit the highest number since February 2021. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has downplayed the outbreak and told healthcare professionals that he opposes any mask mandate for students.
Florida saw more than 18,200 new cases on 26 July 2021, breaking the previous record of 17,991 set on 5 January 2021, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The rate of increase is faster than in either of the previous two waves and appears to be exponential.
Daily hospitalizations due to COVID-19 reached 6,369 on 24 July 2021, according to data dashboard from University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi, the largest number of hospitalizations from COVID-19 in Florida since February 2021.
Despite the alarming numbers, Gov. DeSantis claimed last week, “It’s a seasonal virus, and this is the seasonal pattern it follows in the Sun Belt states,” as his campaign sold “Don’t Fauci My Florida” merchandise. He predicted the case rate would decline next month. Yesterday, he met in the Capitol with medical professionals and threatened to call a special legislative session to prevent mask mandates for schoolchildren. DeSantis has encouraged vaccinations, but he has banned businesses from requiring proof of vaccination.
A group of Florida physicians denounced the DeSantis agenda, announcing on 22 July 2021 that the governor’s push to reopen the state and block precautions have caused the outbreak.
“While hospitals in our state were filling up, DeSantis was shouting about ‘Freedom over Faucism,’” said Dr. Bernard Ashby, a Miami cardiologist, who leads the group of 405 Florida physicians. “If DeSantis were as concerned about stopping COVID-19 spread as he was about coming up with these clever jabs about Dr. Fauci, we might not be in this position. As a physician and a Floridian, I am frankly angry and ashamed. You know the Florida-man moniker unfortunately holds true in this particular circumstance.”
Immunologist Dr. Mona Mangat of the physicians’ committee added, “At the same time as DeSantis says the vaccines are effective — which they are — he’s also banning businesses from requiring proof of vaccination. He has taken away private companies’ ability to protect their employees and customers by requiring the safe and readily available vaccine.”
The unvaccinated population of Florida provides an ideal breeding ground for evolution to experiment and improve the virus. The University of Miami’s sequencing lab reports on the variant cases and currently, 49 percent are caused by the Delta Variant; two months ago, Delta accounted for 2 percent of Florida’s cases. The B.1.621 variant (the “Colombian Variant”), is now responsible for 10 percent of COVID patients at one Miami hospital.
States with low vaccination rates and exponentially increasing infections risk becoming no-go zones for vacationers and businesses. Warnings against theme park attendance already are appearing in travel media (Why it may be time to rethink a Florida theme park trip). Facing financial collapse from chronic disease, these “personal responsibility” states will need to lean more heavily on Federal money to avoid becoming mini-failed states within North America.
