Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday downplayed a spike in COVID-19 cases that's shattered state hospitalization records and strongly reiterated his vow not to impose a mask mandate or any business restrictions.
With the much more contagious Delta variant now spreading exponentially, Florida hit 11,515 hospitalized patients on Tuesday, breaking last year's record for the third straight day and up from just 1,000 in mid-June.
DeSantis, a Republican, said he expects hospitalizations to drop in the next couple weeks, asserting that the spike is seasonal as Floridians spend more time together indoors to escape the summer heat and humidity.
'We are not shutting down,' DeSantis said Tuesday during a wide-ranging press conference.
'We are going to have schools open. We are protecting every Floridian's job in this state. We are protecting people's small businesses. These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States.'
DeSantis says COVID cases will decrease in the coming weeks amid spike in Delta cases and says 'interventions' have not stopped the spread
DeSantis credited his response to COVID-19, which has focused on vaccinating seniors and nursing home residents, for the fact that fewer Floridians are dying now than last August.
'Since we did our seniors first vaccination effort at the end of last year, beginning of this year, we've seen between a 70 and 75 percent reduction in mortality year-over-year compared to last summer's wave as well as in the January peak,' he said.
'We've also seen almost 25.000 fully vaccinated people test positive. I think we had assumed that it would provide more sterilizing immunity.'
But President Biden on Tuesday demanded that DeSantis, along with the Republican governor of Texas use his power to save lives or get out of the way of people doing the right thing.
His pointed remarks came as he delivered an update on efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and urged Americans to protect themselves from a surge in cases.
He backed city and private mandates that require people to be vaccinated to take part in some daily activities.
And he reserved special criticism for state officials who were getting in the way of letting 'people do the right thing' such as banning mask mandates in schools or elsewhere.
'The escalation of cases is particularly concentrated in states with low vaccination rates,' he said.
'Just two states, Florida and Texas, account for one third of all new COVID-19 cases in the entire country. Just two states.
'Look, we need leadership from everyone.'
A year ago, Florida was averaging about 180 COVID-19 deaths per day during an early August spike, but last week averaged 58 per day.
However, 2,400 COVID-19 patients are in an intensive care unit, and deaths generally don't spike until a few weeks after hospitalizations.
'Even among a lot of positive tests, you are seeing much less mortality that you did year-over-year,' DeSantis said at a Miami-area press conference.
'Would I rather have 5,000 cases among 20-year-olds or 500 cases among seniors? I would rather have the younger.'
The nation's top infectious disease expert has also urged more people to get vaccinated as he warned that the U.S. is currently on a trajectory in its Indian 'Delta' Covid outbreak that is similar to the one seen in the UK earlier this year.
In a conversation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday, Dr Anthony Fauci discussed the recent surge in America, where average cases have risen 266 percent in the last three weeks from 23,000 per day to 85,000.
Meanwhile, in Britain, daily cases have hit a five-week low after peaking around 54,000 in mid-July.
President Biden took aim at the Republican governors of Texas and Florida as he delivered an update on his administration's COVID-19 response, saying they were making 'bad health policy' that meant their states were responsible for a third of all coronavirus cases in the U.S.
President Biden took aim at the Republican governors of Texas and Florida as he delivered an update on his administration's COVID-19 response, saying they were making 'bad health policy' that meant their states were responsible for a third of all coronavirus cases in the U.S.
Dr Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday (above) that the U.S is currently on a trajectory in its recent surge of COVID-19 cases that is 'strikingly similar' to the outbreak seen in the UK
Coronavirus infections in Britain peaked at 54,000 in mid-July and have since declined to a five-week low of 21,691 recorded on Tuesday, while the U.S. has been about three to four weeks behind
Fauci said the U.S. is seeing a rise in people getting vaccinated, but that is likely to have a delayed effect on case rates.
'Since an acceleration of vaccines doesn't give a result until several weeks after, we are already on a trajectory that looks strikingly similar to the sharp incline that the UK saw,' he explained.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and infectious Diseases also predicted that the U.S. would see as many as 200,000 cases a day before infections start to decline.
DeSantis also said media 'hysteria' on the swelling numbers could cause people having heart attacks or strokes to avoid going to an emergency room for fear of being infected.
'Media does hysteria, you try to fear monger, you try to do this stuff and when they all talk about hospitalizations, our hospitals are open for business,' he said.
Seven children have been taken to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital with COVID-19
An ambulance enters the emergency room wing at Tampa General Hospital amid a coronavirus disease outbreak in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday
Miami-Dade residents line-up as they are tested for COVID-19 at Cagni Park in North Miami on Sunday
Doctors interviewed by the Associated Press acknowledged this happened during the early months of the pandemic, but say it's no longer true, and that they're treating the usual number of cardiac patients.
DeSantis also battled with a reporter over students wearing masks during the Tuesday press conference.
He was asked if being required to wear masks would have prevented seven children from landing in Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital after he banned school districts from requiring masks in schools.
'Seven kids are in Joe DiMaggio Hospital, two of them are in the ICU. Don't you think that wearing masks would help in those particular- ' the reporter asked as she was cut off by the governor.
DeSantis said: 'Do you have any data to suggest that? Do you know if they were wearing masks? Well they're not, right, they're not eligible for the vaccination. I mean, that's not, I mean - you know - well.'
'So you're- you're- you're blaming the kids saying they weren't wearing masks, so they're in the ICU,' he continued.
'With all due respect, I find that deplorable to blame a victim who ends up being hospitalized. You don't know their story. You don't know what happened with that.'
He added: 'This has been a really negative thing throughout this whole thing with some of these experts, some in the media, somebody contracts a highly transmissible airborne virus, and they're viewed as having done something wrong.'
Nurse Alix Zacharski, right, sanitizes her hands as other doctors and nurses continue to care for a patient in the Medical Intensive Care Unit for COVID-19 patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital on July 23
Medical personnel conduct Covid-19 testing at a 'drive-through' site in Miami on Tuesday
DeSantis notably did not answer the reporter's question if he believes masks would have prevented those children from landing in the hospital.
The governor also said during the press conference that the best indicator for how the Sunshine State is handling the pandemic are measurements such as the emergency room visits for COVID-like illness.
'When you see that go up, you know you're going to see increase in prevalence and an increase in hospital admissions,' DeSantis said.
DeSantis did encourage people to get vaccinated, saying shots provide a strong defense against getting seriously ill. About 95% of those hospitalized and almost all recent deaths have been among the unvaccinated, hospital officials have said.
'You can still test positive, but at the end of the day you can turn this from something that was much more threatening to a senior citizen, say, to something that is more manageable,' said DeSantis, who has been vaccinated. 'That is a huge, huge thing.'
Jacksonville doctor Leonardo Alonso told WESH that Floridians should dismiss DeSantis' comments.
'He's not on the front lines like myself and my colleagues,' Alonso said.
'We should be practicing safe masking and social distancing in school. Some of his statements just make no public health sense.'
The spike has come as DeSantis and local officials have fought over how to protect children and staff as the school year begins.
Broward County's school board reversed a decision to require facial coverings after DeSantis barred mandates and threatened to cut funding from districts that don't comply.
President Biden took aim at the Republican governors of Texas and Florida as he delivered an update on his administration's COVID-19 response, saying they were making 'bad health policy' that meant their states were responsible for a third of all coronavirus cases in the U.S.
Broward's board had responded to the latest science on the virus and the latest recommendations of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the governor said parents should decide if their children should wear a mask to school.
On Friday, DeSantis had issued Executive Order 21-175, in response to several Florida school boards like Broward considering or implementing mask mandates in their schools.
He said in a press release that the school boards had been responding to 'unscientific and inconsistent recommendations that school-aged children wear masks' from the Biden Administration.
'Masking children may lead to negative health and societal ramifications,' the order reads. 'Studies have shown that children are at a low risk of contracting a serious illness due to COVID-19 and do not play a significant role in the spread of the virus.'
The order added that forcing kids to wear masks 'could inhibit breathing, lead to the collection of dangerous impurities including bacteria, parasites, fungi, and other contaminants, and adversely affect communications in the classroom and student performance.'
DeSantis had barred school districts from enforcing mask mandates claiming school officials had been responding to 'unscientific and inconsistent recommendations' that they wear masks from the Biden Administration
DeSantis wrote in the order that 'there is no statistically-significant evidence to suggest that counties with mask requirements have fared any better than those without mask requirements during the 2020-2021 school year.'
President Joe Biden criticized DeSantis and other officials who have moved to block the reimposition of mask mandates.
He called on resistant Republican governors to 'get out of the way' of vaccine rules and endorsed New York City's move to require vaccinations to dine indoors or go to the gym.
'If you're not going to help, at least get out of the way of people trying to do the right thing,' Biden said.
Dr. O'Neil Pyke, chief medical officer at Jackson North Medical Center in Miami, said many Florida hospitals are facing staffing shortages.
Hospitals also report putting emergency room patients in beds in hallways, and some are again banning visitors or postponing elective surgeries.
'They're just coming in faster than we discharge them,' said Justin Senior, CEO of Florida Safety Net Hospital Alliance, which represents some of the state's largest hospitals caring for low-income patients.
Still, he said few hospitals will run out of room as they can convert non-traditional spaces like conference areas into COVID-19 wards.
Penny Ceasar, who handles admissions at a hospital near Fort Lauderdale, wants the governor to require vaccines for health care workers and masks for everyone.
Ceasar said while Westside Regional Medical Center has been getting temporary staff from other states, the alarming number of new patients is taking a toll.
'You´re on an emotional rollercoaster because we care for our patients like we care for our families,' said Ceasar, a 30-year veteran.
The CDC reported more than 50,000 new COVID-19 cases in the state over the last three days, raising the seven-day average to one of the highest counts since the pandemic began.
In total, the state has seen more than 2.6 million cases and 39,179 deaths.
DeSantis is running for reelection next year while eyeing a 2024 presidential bid. A central tenet of his national image among conservatives is his refusal to impose mask mandates or business restrictions.
No comments:
Post a Comment