A state of emergency in Florida after strong rebound in coronavirus infections

The worrying spike in coronavirus cases in Florida, which according to the latest official report presents a positivity rate of 15.1%, has led some elected officials to ask the state governor, Ron DeSantis, to declare a state of emergency.

State Legislator Annette Taddeo sent a letter to DeSantis in which he asked him to declare the state of emergency, which would be the second during the pandemic of covid-19, in view of the fact that “hospitalizations related to coronavirus increased 106% in Florida during the last 2 weeks”.

“Right now, our state is experiencing infection and hospitalization rates similar to those that occurred in June 2020, when we witnessed peak rates of infection, intubations, and deaths,” the state legislator pointed out in her letter.

DeSantis signed in March of last year an emergency declaration due to the advance of the covid-19, which he later extended and kept in force until May 3 of this year, although there are no signs, for the moment, of a new statement, according to spokesmen for his office told the local Tallahassee Democrat.

There are also no signs of a return to daily reports on the incidence of the coronavirus in this state, one of the few in United States where all its counties (67) are in the “high” level of community transmission of the disease, according to the governmental Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English).

Taddeo asked DeSantis to return to the daily incidence reports, which since June 7 have been replaced by weekly reports, in order to, he said, “fully understand our situation.”

“We are not seeing the full scope of COVID-19 cases due to incomplete data,” added the legislator.

ALARMING FIGURES

According to the latest official report from the Department of Health of Florida, published last Friday, in this state an alarming figure of 73,199 new infections has been registered in the week of July 16 to 22, an increase of 60% compared to the previous one (45,584 cases), more than any other state in the country .

The positivity rate reached 15.1%, with an average of 10,000 new infections per day for a total accumulated of about 2.5 million cases in the state since the start of the pandemic on March 1, 2020, according to the State Agency.

Even in Volusia County, in central Florida, the positivity rate reached 21.6% and in Union, to the north, it was 30%.

In addition, last week 282 deaths were recorded due to covid-19 in Florida, a state with only 48.5% of its population fully vaccinated and with hospitals on high alert due to the increase in the number of infected hospitalized.

The legislator sent her letter on the same day that the CDC will recommend that Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 wear a mask indoors in most parts of the country.

The measure is a setback in relation to the recommendations of this agency in May, when vaccination was advancing at a firm pace and informed those who had already received the full schedule that they could go without a mask most of the time, even indoors. .

MANDATORY VACCINES FOR SANITARY

On Monday, nearly 60 health and medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, issued a joint statement calling on all US hospitals and healthcare facilities. that force their employees to get vaccinated against covid-19.

In a comment published in The American Journal of Medicine, Dr. Charles Hennekens of the Florida Atlantic University School of Medicine (FAU) said that in the United States, covid-19 is “largely an epidemic of people not vaccinated” and it was alarming that among health workers there are not high levels of vaccination.

“Today’s healthcare workers and the general public must be well aware that these vaccines provide the best opportunity to combat COVID-19. The rejection of the vaccine by health workers poses an ‘ethical quagmire’ ”, said Hennekens.

At a time when the number of cases in Florida and the United States is skyrocketing due to new variants such as the delta, more contagious than the previous ones, and new ones, the epidemiologist from the University of South Florida Edwin Michael and his colleague Ken Newcomb suggest doubling the vaccination figures.

Michael noted that herd immunity will not be achieved until the vaccination rate is at least 85%.