The latest report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force warned that Florida would experience “serious deaths for many weeks” for a number of weeks as the state experienced a complete resurgence of the deadly coronavirus.
The January 10 report, which was submitted to the Tampa Bay Times said Friday the rapidly growing number of cases underscores the crew of hospitals. That put Florida still in the red zone for its number of new cases, saying 11 percent of state hospitals report a staff shortage, a slight increase compared to the previous week.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, provides weekly reports for each state. The reports regularly encouraged Florida and other states to take steps to mitigate the spread of the virus, including limiting capacity at pubs and restaurants and implementing policies on face masks.
The January 10 report notes that a potentially more contagious virus strain is emerging as a reason for Florida to take strict measures to prevent the spread of the infection.
“Aggressive mitigation should be used to match a more aggressive virus,” the report recommended, adding that “without uniform implementation of effective face masking … and strict physical distance, epidemics can quickly worsen.”
It is said that Florida “should increase the mitigation of public and local public mitigation” and that communication about the importance of things like avoiding family gatherings should increase. It is recommended that all K-12 teachers and older students, as well as those at colleges and universities, be tested weekly. Florida has not asked or asked for anything like that.
The report also insisted on efforts to vaccinate people quickly. As of Friday, nearly 850,000 people in Florida had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of Floridians with at least partial vaccination was slightly higher than the U.S. average.
More than 1.5 million Florida residents tested positive for the coronavirus overall, and more than 24,000 died.
Governor Ron DeSantis has long been opposed to a mask mandate across the country, focusing in recent weeks on public comment on the coronavirus on deploying vaccines, rather than wearing a mask or making other mitigation efforts.
The Florida Department of Health’s Twitter account, which regularly posted reminders about coronavirus precautions, such as wearing masks, hand washing, social removal and protecting the elderly and vulnerable, largely halted such reports a few months ago. The Twitter account has been devoted almost entirely to sharing information on where to get vaccines and to retweet video from DeSantis’ news conferences over the past few days.
Some of the task force’s recommendations DeSantis has previously called ‘problematic’. His office had previously failed to provide the White House’s weekly reports to the public in a timely manner, which Orlando Sentinel to file a lawsuit in December alleging the state violated the Public Records Act.
The state settled the lawsuit earlier this month and agreed to submit the reports on request within two business days and to pay $ 7,500 in attorney’s fees.
In December, the federal task force said it would only submit the reports to states if the states requested it. So far, Florida, through its Department of Health, has continued to request it, although some other states have stopped doing so.
Florida’s reports are now being provided to the public on request by the health department rather than by the governor’s office.
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