‘Good’ virus news in Florida? More like an admission of defeat
Palm Beach County just sent masks to every homeowner. Two months late. On Sunday, County Mayor Dave Kerner became the latest politician to issue misplaced COVID-19 optimism. The county had recorded no deaths that day. The positive test rate was below 10 percent for the fifth day in a row.
“This is a big deal,” Kerner said. “What we’re doing is working.”
Kerner made those cheery comments as the case rate remained roughly six times higher than when the county began reopening in May. Any decline in COVID-19 metrics is welcome. But Kerner basically welcomed the potential upgrade of the county’s COVID-19 condition from critical to serious.
If what the county had been doing was “working,” the recent surge would not have happened, at least not to the same level.
The county could have issued a mask order when Phase 1 reopening began. Instead, the county commission didn’t issue one until late June, after the case rate had spiked. Nor did the county enforce the Phase 1 restrictions aggressively enough.
In fact, the county entered Phase 1 before meeting the guidelines created by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ task force. The county sought to enter Phase 2 before meeting the next set of guidelines. After the surge, the county withdrew its letter to DeSantis asking permission to reopen further.
The case surge harmed businesses that the county supposedly was trying to help in its rush to open. Restaurant customers are staying away. Even the most daring summer travelers had to think twice.
Most important, the surge came as school officials were deciding whether to open campuses this month. Even if the recent positivity rate is under 10 percent, that’s nearly double the rate public health experts deem reasonably safe to let students back into classrooms.
Of course, Kerner is only doing on the county level what DeSantis and President Trump are doing at the state and federal levels. They talk past reality.
As cases surged statewide, the governor tried to blame increased testing. Then he blamed farmworkers and George Floyd protesters. In fact, it was community spread from reopening too quickly without adequate enforcement.
Then DeSantis tried to minimize the rising case rate by noting that many new infections were among younger people. Because they tend to be healthier, DeSantis chirped, there’s less risk of death.
Recently, however, daily deaths rose to record levels. On Tuesday, Florida had its third-highest number. So DeSantis has started talking about the lower rate of new cases.
And, yes, the rate is down about 20 percent from its mid-July high. But the rate remains 10 times higher than it was when reopening began. Covid Act Now notes that if the current rate continued, more than half of all Floridians would contract COVID-19 in the next year.
Of course, no one does COVID-19 happy talk more than Trump. Over the weekend, he blasted White House medical adviser Debra Birks as “pathetic” for telling the truth – that the country has entered a “new phase” in which the virus is “extraordinarily widespread.”
Trump also embarrassed himself again during a television interview. Two weeks ago, Chris Wallace of Fox News stripped bare the president’s claim of handling the pandemic well. This time, it was Jonathan Swan of Axios.
The president claimed that the virus is “under control as much as we can control it.” Swan pointed out that 1,000 Americans are dying each day. Even after checking his notes, Trump offered only a feeble response.
Our death rate is fourth worst in the world. South Korea — a country of 52 million people — has had 301 COVID-19 deaths. We have had 155,000. Germany, which has 80 million people, has had roughly 9,200 deaths. That number shames not only the United States but also Florida.
While DeSantis ties the state’s response to Trump’s fecklessness, other governors are going their own way. Maryland’s Larry Hogan, a Republican who chairs the National Governors Association, just formed a bipartisan coalition with five counterparts to buy more rapid-result tests. Florida is not a member.
Without a statewide plan – testing, tracing, enforcement – new surges likely are inevitable. Each will leave more damage. What we’re doing in Florida is not working.