ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Since the pandemic arrived in Florida, Orange County has implemented a mask mandate and formed a safety strike team to ensure businesses are complying with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to stop the virus from spreading but that only goes so far when thousands of people enter and leave Central Florida’s largest county daily coming from places that don’t have such measures.
Wouldn’t it be great if Florida had a consistent statewide plan to get people to comply with social distancing and mask wearing? That’s what Orange County Jerry Demings thought out loud Friday during one of his weekly COVID-19 briefings updating the community on efforts to combat and now vaccinate from the virus.
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“The virus is not contained within the boundaries of one county moves around,” Demings said. “But just think about it, if the other counties throughout the state had the same kind of compliance, where they were requiring and inspecting businesses and holding others accountable what we could accomplish.”
Demings announced the creation of the strike teams in mid-July to help businesses follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Unfortunately, Demings mused, there is not uniformity throughout the state of Florida in regards to CDC guidelines. Gov. Ron DeSantis all but lifted any restrictions in September and stripped local municipalities from enforcing them upon individuals by executive order.
But would a statewide compliance plan help curb Florida’s increasing coronavirus cases? Demings directed that question to Dr. Raul Pino, Orange County health officer with the Florida Department of Health. To which the county’s top doctor replied, “anything that increase accountability and adherence to CDC guidelines will definitely have an impact on our rates.”
Orange County reported its highest number of new daily infections Friday with more than 1,400 new cases. Meanwhile Florida’s COVID-19 death toll surpassed over 23,000 and the positivity rate has been over the advised 10% for about a week.
The reason a statewide compliance plan could help stop the spread, said Pino, is because of daily travel between counties with conflicting guidance. Orange County is a hub for tech, travel, and work, Pino said.
Before the pandemic, Orange County saw 75 million visitors last year, according to Visit Orlando. While this year a deadly virus has dampened those visits significantly the county is still home to 1.4 million people and that’s not counting the employees who commute in and out of Orange County on a daily basis, according to Pino.
“Our daily population probably increases by the 100,000s when people come to work when people come to travel,” Pino said. “That’s a challenge for public health, economy, anything. So imagine everyone from all their surrounding counties who may not have the same guidelines our county has in place coming in and out all the time.”
Demings closed by saying he would love to see a statewide strategy and uniformity among the state’s 67 counties.
“But I’m not the decision-maker on behalf of the State, you know, I get to operate within Orange County and make the decisions here,” Demings said.