Orange deaths climb past 100

Demings calls for ‘strike teams’ to enforce mask rules

Another 17 people died from coronavirus in Orange County, state health officials reported Thursday, bringing the tally in Orange to 102 deaths.

The grim news and a fourth day of more than 1,000 positive cases led Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings to promise to send “strike teams” into establishments to compel compliance with his mandatory facial-covering order, which some businesses are ignoring.

“We want to focus on the bad actors,” he said.

The actions come as Florida grapples with the latest surge — another 13,837 new virus cases reported Thursday with about about 13% of daily tests results coming back positive. In all, the state added 156 additional deaths to its tally of 4,677.

The newly reported deaths occurred in recent weeks. Dr. Raul Pino, the state health officer for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, said the new deaths in Orange County were from a wide timeframe, and included mostly older people, with some in their 30s and 40s.

Demings said the strike teams will include staff from Orange County code enforcement and the state health department.

“They’re not going to be wearing combat gear or any of that,” he said. “They will be wearing facial coverings. They’ll be staff who will be clearly identified as either Orange County officials or Department of Health officials . ... We won’t be calling businesses in advance, saying ‘Oh, by the way, we’re on the way to inspect your business.’ We’re just going to show up just like anybody else from the public who shows up and observes.”

He said the teams may take “appropriate regulatory measures” in response to what they witness, and could even require the business to close.

The mayor also said it’s likely he will impose penalties for people who don’t wear face coverings in public, though he said he would wait until his economic recovery task force meets next week to

make a final decision.

“We are likely to go to the next phase,” he said.

The new daily data also showed another uptick in the number of tests processed — more than 12,000 — with 1,379 positive cases reported, a record high for Orange. The rate of positives was 11.1%, a slight increase over the past five days.

Throughout the week, the region has seen an increase in the number of tests reported, likely stemming from a combination of factors, including labs working through backlogs as well as the inclusion of tests from the NBA and MLS “bubbles” at Walt Disney World.

Pino said the average wait time for these tests was seven days, which is far too long to be effective, he said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday the state was moving toward labs that could return results within 72 hours, and local officials have said labs moving to electronic reporting has also helped speed up wait times.

Osceola County announced 516 new cases, with 15.7% of tests coming back positives, Seminole found 180 new cases with 10.1% of tests returning positive, and Lake County had 126 new positive cases and 9.5% of tests came back positive.

In the past 24 hours, six new deaths were reported in Lake County, Seminole County reported 3 and Osceola reported none.

Pino said he has been swamped with about 500 emails about schools reopening. After some School Board members expressed frustration with him not attending the board’s marathon 10-hour meeting Wednesday, Pino said he thought his presence would be a distraction, and that data trends hadn’t changed since he briefed them at a work session a week earlier.

He said some of the emails he received he perceived as threatening, and were forwarded to law enforcement.

He said he asked state administrators to clarify the local Health Department’s role in the school district’s decision.

Pino said he was told his role was to inform the board of information and data to help them make the decision, as well as help devise plans to do so safely.

“And if our role is to decide for the school board to open the schools or not — like many people have claimed — we will have no objection to making the decision when the time comes,” he said.

He said he’s not scheduled to attend the board’s meeting Friday.