BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – The third wave is here.
Florida now has uncontrolled, sustained community spread of the coronavirus, and is fast approaching one million lab-confirmed cases and 20,000 dead.
This is the grim picture painted by the White House Coronavirus Task Force in its most recent weekly report that calls for “aggressive action” to contain the latest spike in the pandemic, according to reporting by News 6 partner Florida Today.
“Florida is in the midst of a viral resurgence and with aggressive action now, can contain this surge. The number of counties in the red zone has doubled in the last week and also concerning is the rise in the number of long long-term care facilities (LTCF) with positive staff,” reads the Nov. 15 White House report.
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Florida, while performing slightly better than the national average, has the 37th highest rate of new cases nationally. Only Hawaii is trending in the right direction.
Brevard has averaged over 100 new cases and several deaths per day for the past two weeks, passing 14,000 total cases Thursday, and bringing the county death toll to 418. Statewide the caseload reached 914,333 and the death toll 18,030.
“There is now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration. Current mitigation efforts are inadequate and must be increased to flatten the curve to sustain the health system for both COVID and non-COVID emergencies,” reads part of the task force’s recommendation for the Sunshine State.
The report also recommended proactively and focused testing, full flu immunization, mask wearing, social distancing and aggressive contact tracing.
Meanwhile, late daily reporting and reshuffling of staff at the Department of Health has raised concerns over transparency and what is to be expected from Governor Ron DeSantis’ leadership in a new critical phase of the pandemic.
[WATCH: Florida nears 1 million coronavirus cases]
“We are still faced with challenges of not being able to gain access to Department of Health public-related data for analysis, so there has not been a broad basis for cooperative (COVID-19) research (in Florida),” says Jay Wolfson the Senior Associate Dean for Health Policy at the University of South Florida’s medical school.
Wolfson has been lobbying for months on behalf of Florida’s public and private medical schools for access to the state’s closely coronavirus data collected from hospitals, clinics and labs.
The urgency of the mounting crisis could not be more clear. “The water is boiling,” Wolfson said.
Shake-ups in key staff in the DOH, such as this month’s departure of spokesman Alberto Moscoso, and the hiring of Kyle Lamb, a conspiracy-theory spinning Ohio college sports blogger to be a COVID-19 data analyst has sparked unease.
“For reasons that I still don’t understand the best and the brightest are not necessarily being retained, it’s those who follow the party line,” Wolfson said.
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Rebekah Jones, a former data manager for the DOH who was fired in May after she refused to doctor public data likened the shake-ups to “a purge.”
An email to Moscoso’s temporary replacement, Jason Mahon, yielded an out of office reply Friday.
The DOH and Emergency Management media lines in Tallahassee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In comments to the Orlando Sentinel, DeSantis spokesman Fred Piccolo explaining Moscoso’s departure said, “That’s a tough gig. DOH ... I just think he did his part and wants to go home at 5 and put his phone down.”
After a week of silence during which the governor was in Washington meeting with officials, DeSantis Thursday issued a video message that seemed to try and reassure the public.
“This month has brought promising news regarding therapeutics and vaccines to combat COVID-19 and the state of Florida has been working to procure the new treatment for our hospitals and also made plans to assist in the distribution of a safe and effective vaccine which we believe will be delivered relatively soon,” he said.
The governor said the federal government this week promised 3,000 doses of the recently FDA-approved for emergency use coronavirus therapy developed by Eli Lilly, to be sent out to Florida hospitals. “And they plan on sending a similar amount for every week for the foreseeable future,” he said.
In Brevard, local hospital systems are benefitting.
Parrish Health Medical Center is set to receive a weekly allocation, Sr. Vice President, Communications, Community & Corporate Services Natalie Sellers said in an email.
“The weekly allocation varies. The therapy will be applied in accordance with CDC’s strict use guidelines,” she said.
Health First’s Chief Clinical Officer, Dr. Jeffrey Stalnaker, in a statement through a spokesperson said, “We have received a limited supply of bamlanivimab and will begin administering doses on Monday.”
Steward did not immediately reply to questions from FLORIDA TODAY.
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DeSantis said DOH has also purchased 5 million needles, syringes and alcohol swabs in anticipation of a vaccine rollout which he said could begin as soon as three to six weeks from now.
“These breakthroughs represent probably the greatest rays of hope we have seen since the pandemic began, they offer the prospect of saving thousands and thousands of lives and potentially bringing this pandemic to an end,” DeSantis said, emphasizing that vaccines would not be mandated for Floridians.
Advances in treating COVID-19 such as monoclonal antibody cocktails developed by Eli Lilly and Regeneron have successfully lowered the death rate of the virus, experts say, but effective vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer, are unlikely to be available to the general public until 2021 as the vaccine rollout is likely to prioritize healthcare workers and most vulnerable individuals first.
“We’ve gotten really good at managing the care and treating people. But as the number of cases go up, and as the number of hospitalizations go up, then the number of deaths will go up,” Wolfson said.
Floridians should not lower their guard.
[TIMELINE: The spread of coronavirus in Florida]
“I think we’ll be seeing a considerable increase of cases over the next six to eight weeks toward the end of the year, especially as flu season comes in and there’s compromised health as a consequence of that, which will make people even more susceptible to other viruses,” warns USF’s Wolfson. “I’m hoping that we will be lucky.”
“The trick is going to be to know that it’s happening, to be able to have sufficient testing in our communities to be able to identify those hotspots. So that we can secure those areas and reduce the spread. And that’s really tough especially on college campuses and in urban areas where people are coming to visit, because with the restaurants and the bars being open there is really no control of what goes on,” Wolfson said.
Even with better odds of survivability the long-term of effects of COVID-19 infections, even among the youth, are beginning to be known and it’s not pretty. The heart, lungs, liver, kidney and brain all seem to be affected in many cases, even among those who only suffered mild forms of the illness, according to research.
“Even if you’re asymptomatic, the nature of this virus is it attaches itself to an organ, and it sits there and some people are going to have an eruption at some point in the future, we’re already seeing some cases, and they’re going to have a new disease, it’s going to be a chronic disease that can affect them for the rest of their lives. So, that’s a reality,” Wolfson said.
As a result, we may be left with a “zombie nation” he added.
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With the arrival in Florida of the seasonal flu, and snowbirds, the messaging from local health officials remains the same: get your flu vaccine shot if you haven’t already, take precautions and wear a mask.
“We strongly encourage everyone age 6 months and older to get their flu shot as soon as possible. Flu vaccination is the best way to prevent the flu and its potentially serious complications,” DOH-Brevard’s assistant director Anita Stremmel wrote in an email to FLORIDA TODAY. Children ages 6 months through 18 years can get a free flu vaccination from DOH Brevard’s clinics in Melbourne, Viera and Titusville, Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. through 4 p.m. Uninsured or underinsured adults are also eligible for a free vaccination from DOH’s walk-in clinics.
“We also stress the continued need to take precautions that will mitigate both flu and COVID-19 transmission – wash hands often, avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth, cover coughs and sneezes, clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces, and monitor your health. Don’t go to work or school when you are sick,” Stremmel wrote.
“Face coverings are absolutely still vital in preventing the spread of COVID-19,” she added.
The CDC has recommended this Thanksgiving against holiday travel or celebrating with people outside of one’s own household. The White House report specifically warns that students should be wary of bringing the virus home to family.
[WATCH: CDC warns against Thanksgiving travel]
“Encourage (colleges and universities) to test their student body before they leave campus for Thanksgiving break to mitigate exposure to family and community,” it reads.
But with schools, restaurants and bars open at full capacity, and mask wearing inconsistent across the general public, many local leaders across the state have pleaded with the governor for a mask mandate. But such a mandate is unlikely to be enforceable, and opponents of a mandate, such as South Brevard’s state Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay) have said that there should instead be an appeal to people’s personal responsibility.
“I wear a mask because it’s the right thing to do,” Fine has said on numerous occasions.
Notably absent from the Governor’s five-and-a-half-minute message was the public health advice most vaunted by the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health: a reminder to wear a mask.
The inconsistent messaging on mask-wearing has been decried as one of the most substantial failures of leadership across the country during this pandemic.
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Wolfson says it’s not bars and restaurants being open or the lack of a mask mandate that is the problem.
“It’s the people who go to them. They’re lazy, they’re reckless, and they’re putting the rest of the population at risk. Because they don’t care whether they give it to somebody else. And they don’t believe that if they get it, it’s going to be that big of a deal.”
To blame, he said, is leadership.
“People are being irresponsible and reckless, and they don’t give a damn because leadership has encouraged them to rebel against the system in any way that they can, (telling them that mask-wearing) really isn’t science, it’s just a political stunt. Well, it’s not, and that’s the lie, it’s the perpetration of the lie by leadership and the creation of policy principles based on that lie that’s unnecessary.”
“We are in this together. It’s a team sport. All of us are on the same team and Covid’s on the other side.”
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