Florida grapples with deadliest phase yet as Delta runs rampant

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 also arranged the funeral last week 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.

While Florida’s vaccination rate is slightly higher than the national average, the Sunshine State has an outsize population of elderly people, who are especially vulnerable to the virus, a vibrant party scene and a Republican governor who has taken a hard line against mask requirements, vaccine passports and business shutdowns.

In 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 summer 2020. Because of both the way deaths are logged in Florida and lags in reporting, more recent figures on fatalities per day are incomplete.

Hospitals have had to rent refrigerated trucks to store more bodies. Funeral homes have been overwhelmed.

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, adding that her children are grieving differently, with one shutting down, another feeling inspired to pass a hard swimming test and the oldest going about her life as usual.

Hospitals have been swamped with patients who, like Miles’ husband and mother-in-law, did not get vaccinated.

In a positive sign, the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 in Florida has dropped over the past two weeks from more than 17,000 to 14,200 on Friday, indicating the surge is easing.

Florida made an aggressive effort early on to vaccinate its senior citizens. But Dr. Kartik Cherabuddi, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Florida, said the raw number of those who have yet to get the shot is still large, given Florida’s elderly population of 4.6 million.

“Even 10% is still a very large number, and then folks living with them who come in contact with them are not vaccinated,” Cherabuddi said. “With Delta, things spread very quickly.”

Cherabuddi said there is a “huge difference” in attitudes toward masks in Florida this summer compared with last year. This summer, “if you travelled around the state, it was like we are not really in a surge,” he said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has strongly opposed certain mandatory measures to keep the virus in check, saying people should be trusted to make decisions for themselves. He insists the spike in cases is seasonal as people spend more time indoors to escape the heat.

CRISTINA MILES VIA AP Cristina Miles, Austin Miles and their five children. Less than two weeks after Austin Miles died of a COVID-19 infection that also sickened Cristina and their five children, her mother-in-law died of the virus. Both Austin Miles and his mother did not get vaccinated.