DeSantis says cases stable as numbers soar
Miami-Dade officials sounding more urgent tone about pandemic
Florida’s exploding number of coronavirus cases has begun to stabilize, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday at a news conference where a heckler accused him of “doing nothing” about the pandemic.
“The percentage of people who are testing positive has finally started to decline,‘’ he said at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. “We’ll see if that’s a trend or whether that was something that was short-lived. Certainly, we can say the percentage of people who come in and test positive has stabilized.”
Miami-Dade officials in the same room, however, sounded a more urgent tone.
“Until we start to drive down the contagion level in Miami-Dade County we can’t get a handle on it,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. “If we continue to have further rise in the level of contagion and have more and more people going to the hospital … we’re going to have to roll back some of the openings.”
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio also sounded the alarm about a shortage of Remdesivir, a drug used by doctors to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in patients in hospitals throughout the state.
“Over the last 24 hours I have received reports from several Florida hospitals concerned about their potentially critical shortage of Remdesivir,” Rubio posted on Twitter during DeSantis’ event. “I am in contact with federal officials in hopes of addressing this matter immediately.
DeSantis said he’s attempting to get more of the drug to hospitals as well.
DeSantis tried to strike a more empathetic tone but didn’t budge from his policies of allowing local governments to craft the best response to the pandemic, even as coronavirus cases spike around the state.
“I hear you,” he said about growing concerns about the pandemic, but “we can’t get swept away in fear.”
DeSantis’ press conference began with a heckler, who voiced frustration with DeSantis’ response to the coronavirus, shouting, “We are getting recordbreaking cases every day, and you are doing nothing!”
DeSantis continued to talk over the protester as he was removed from the room. He later identified himself on Twitter as Thomas Kennedy, Florida coordinator of United We Dream, a progressive group that describes itself as an “immigrant youth-led community.”
The governor’s comments came as Florida health officials reported
“The percentage of people who are testing positive has finally started to decline. We’ll see if that’s a trend or whether that was something that was short-lived.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis
12,624 new coronavirus cases Monday — the secondhighest increase after Sunday’s U.S. record of 15,300. That brings the total to 282,435, and the 35 new fatalities increased the death toll to 4,277.
The latest positivity rate was 11.5%, a drop from the nearly 20% last week. In Miami-Dade, though, the positivity rate was 25%.
DeSantis again urged residents to practice social distancing, avoid crowds and closed spaces, but said he’d continue to forgo statewide mandates, such as one requiring masks be worn in public, something Democrats have pushed.
DeSantis’ Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an order earlier this month requiring K-12 schools to open this fall and offer in-person classes, unless public health officials said they shouldn’t.
But DeSantis said, “I’m not going to dictate how everything goes,” in response to a question about school districts.
DeSantis said since other parts of the state, including rural ares, aren’t seeing as
dramatic a surge, they shouldn’t have draconian mandates placed on them.
“You’re going to have a lot of school districts around the state that are going to open up, and that’s going to be it,” DeSantis said. “That’s been my approach to almost all of this stuff.”
Jackson Memorial CEO Carlos Migoya stressed that residents’ compliance with CDC guidelines, wearing masks and social distancing, would be crucial in getting the virus under control, and reducing the stress on hospitals, which have neared or reached capacity in many parts of South Florida.
“That is the absolute answer,” Migoya said. “It’s not whether we opened too early or we should shut everything down — the issue right now is enforcement. If we can get everyone to be socially distant and wear a mask that’s the only way we’re going to be able to reduce the number of beds being used in hospitals.”
Jackson Memorial has been one of the hardest-hit hospitals in the state when it comes to the pandemic.
Last week, DeSantis brought in 100 nurses and other health care workers under contract with the state to help with staffing at
Jackson.
Meanwhile, more people are being hospitalized in Florida with COVID-19. On Friday evening, the state reported more than 8,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, up nearly 500 from the day before.
In Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties, there were 1,040 hospitalized coronavirus patients, down five from Sunday.
And the number of children who have tested positive for COVID-19 is also going up — from 11,500 on July 3 to 17,000 on Friday, according to the latest weekly data from the Florida Department of Health.
One more child has died from the infection, bringing up the total child deaths from COVID-19 to four.
Orange County’s total number of COVID-19 cases among children grew from 698 cases last week to 908 on Friday. Lake County reported 147 cases, Osceola 257 cases and Seminole 218 cases.
With more than 3,000 cases Miami-Dade reported the largest number of COVID-19 infections among children.