This is a follow up to my article from eight days ago entitled “Florida #1.” Much has changed in Florida over those eight days, all of it bad, and by a lot. Eight days ago I raised alarm at Florida reporting over 12,600 new Covid cases, and 86 deaths that day.
Today’s numbers are in. Florida reported 21,683 new Covid cases today, the highest such number for Florida throughout this pandemic, and by a lot. The prior such record was in early January and was just under 20,000.
Florida’s new Covid cases today exceeded the very worst New York suffered, also just over 19,000 in early January. Only California had worse days, reaching nearly 40,000 per day around the same time. Dear California, Governor DeSantis says, “hold my beer.”
Florida recorded 108 Covid deaths today. While that is about half its record numbers it could be headed to break that record as well. The reason is the even more alarming increase Covid hospitalizations. Eight days ago that number was just over 6,800. That number was concerning by itself, as it was more than triple the just under 2,000 hospitalizations from just four weeks before.
Since then Florida hospitalizations have exploded to 10,210. In barely a week increasing 50%. Florida hospitalizations are about five times higher than they were just a month ago. Just look at this near vertical graph for Florida hospitalizations.
Once a person is so sick from Covid as to require hospitalization their chance of dying increases 10 to 20 times.
The next closest state I could find to Florida’s over 10,000 hospitalizations was Texas with just under 6,500. California had about 4,100. It should be noted that both those states are still more than double where they were a month ago. New York, Ron DeSantis’ poster child for all that is wrong with Covid while Florida is supposedly all that is right, has about 1,100 hospitalizations, close to 1/10th Florida’s.
For the record, Florida’s vaccination rate is mediocre. With just under 50% of the state’s adults fully vaccinated Florida ranks 25th among states. However, Governor DeSantis remains committed to a fully open state that pretends none of this is happening. He bans businesses from requiring proof of vaccination for employees or customers. He is committed to no mask mandates, and bans local governments from implementing them. This week he signed a declaration cutting off funding to any public school that requires students to wear masks. Cause “freedom.”
The results of these policies are piling up in the hospital beds and morgues across the state. Ain’t “freedom” grand?
