Tourists on Miami beaches.
Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images / Getty Images
Faced with the alarming rise in the covid-19 in Florida and a single weekly information on its incidence by the Republican Government Ron DeSantisFlorida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried on Thursday offered the first independent report on the impact of the pandemic.
Fried said at a press conference that there is a “gap” of data on the covid-19 in Florida and assured that in recent weeks there has been a “real increase” in cases, which has led county authorities as Miami-Dade to re-impose the obligation to wear a mask in government buildings.
FIGHT FOR INFORMATION ABOUT COVID-19
The head of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services indicated that, since Wednesday, there have been 16,038 new cases and 92 deaths, figures based on data shared by the Florida Department of Health with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. of Diseases (CDC) of the USA.
This is Fried’s first pandemic-oriented briefing since Ron DeSantis suspended daily updates in early June.
This Wednesday the CDC alerted on social networks of the “increase” of the Delta variant in the United States with a series of data confirming that it is a mutation “more contagious than the previous ones.”
Therefore, they urged the unvaccinated not to delay the decision: “Get vaccinated and put on the mask until you do,” urged the country’s health authorities, while reminding the population of the importance of wearing a mask in “areas exposed to high transmission, even if they are vaccinated.”
Fried, a staunch critic of DeSantis’ response to the pandemic since its inception, applauded the wave of local governments and corporations implementing various public health measures amid the resurgence of cases.
Like the CDC, Fried asked Floridians to get vaccinated, wear a mask and “trust the science.”
“The need for all of us to do more could not be more urgent”the Democrat warned.
For its part, the Florida Hospital Association published unofficial data today that put 8,816 hospitalizations this Wednesday, when at the peak of July 23, 2020 they were 10,179.
The hospitals also reported that more than 95% of those admitted are patients without completely vaccinated and of younger ages than in the previous spikes of contagion.
NEW COVID-19 TARGET: UNVACCINATED YOUNG PEOPLE
“The virus has a new target: young and unvaccinated people”, said Mary C. Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association.
According to Thomas Unnasch, an infectious disease expert at the University of South Florida (USF), Florida may set a record for daily COVID-19 cases this week.
Unnasch pointed out that the delta variant is spreading rapidly in our state and explained that with the current infection rate we are in “Grave danger of saturating our health care systems”, picked up the local channel NBC 2.
Following the recent CDC recommendation for a return to indoor masks, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools superintendent said today that the district will re-evaluate its decision to make wearing masks a voluntary option for students.
And the Broward County school board voted unanimously Wednesday to make it mandatory for all students to wear a face mask when school begins next month.
Read on: New York City Mayor to Announce New NYC Mask Policy Monday Following CDC Recommendation