Fla. suffers COVID’s deadliest phase yet

MIAMI — Funeral director Wayne Bright has seen grief piled upon grief during the latest COVID-19 surge.

A woman died of the virus, and as her family was planning the funeral, her mother was also struck down. An aunt took over arrangements for the double funeral, only to die of COVID-19 herself two weeks afterward.

“That was one of the most devastating things ever,” said Bright, who last week arranged the funeral of one of his closest friends.

Florida is in the grip of its deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, a disaster driven by the highly contagious delta variant. Although Florida’s vaccination rate is slightly higher than the national average, the state has a large population of elderly people, a vibrant party scene and a Republican governor who has taken a hard line against mask requirements and business shutdowns.

As of mid-August, the state was averaging 244 deaths per day, up from just 23 a day in late June and eclipsing the previous peak of 227 during the summer of 2020. (Because of both the way deaths are logged in Florida, more recent figures on fatalities per day are incomplete.)

Cristina Miles, a mother of five from Orange Park, is among those facing more than one loss at a time. Her husband died after contracting COVID-19, and less than two weeks later, her motherin-law succumbed to the virus.

“I feel we are all kind of in a weird dream state,” she said.

Hospitals have been swamped with patients who, like Miles’ husband and mother-in-law, hadn’t gotten vaccinated.

Pat Seemann, a nurse practitioner whose company has nearly 500 elderly, homebound patients in central Florida, had not lost a single patient during the first waves. And then the variant she calls “the wrecking ball” hit.

In the past month, she lost seven patients in two weeks, including a husband and wife who died within days of each other.

“I cried all weekend. I was devastated, angry,” she said.

The majority of the deaths this summer are among the elderly. Of the 2,345 people whose recent deaths were reported over the past week, 65 percent of them were 65 and older.

“The focus needs to be on who’s dying and who’s ending up in the hospital,” Seeman said. “It’s still going after the elderly.”

CHRIS O’MEARA/ASSOCIATED PRESS Wayne Bright, funeral director at Wilson Funeral Home, places flowers on a casket before a service Thursday in Tampa, Fla. Bright has seen grief piled upon grief as Florida is in the grip of the deadliest wave since the coronavirus pandemic began.