Nurses sent to South Florida
Health care workers to help with virus surge
The state is sending in 100 nurses and other health-care workers to Jackson Health System in Miami to help with a surge of coronavirus patients there, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.
“We’re happy to be able to be supportive, and we are standing by … to do more as circumstances warrant,‘’ DeSantis said.
Later in the day, the governor extended the state of emergency in Florida by 60 days without issuing comment.
The order, first issued in early March, includes powers that allow a governor to deploy National Guard troops and buy supplies needed to battle the pandemic.
Miami-Dade County has more than 1,600 hospitalized coronavirus patients, double what it had two weeks ago. Of those, 331 are in intensive care and 168 are on ventilators, figures that have also doubled.
Intensive care units at several hospitals in Central Florida - Orlando Health ORMC, Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, AdventHealth Kissimmee, AdventHealth Winter Park and Poinciana Medical Center - were at full capacity on Monday, according to data from the Agency for Health Care Administration, which pro
vides only a snapshot in time.
Asked why the Florida Department of Health isn’t releasing the specific number of hospitalizations by county, DeSantis said, “We have abundant capacity.”
Officials with Jackson, who attended a news conference with DeSantis in Miami, said the hospital still had plenty of beds but that it needed more nurses to relieve its overworked staff.
The medical personnel, most of them nurses, are under contract with the state, DeSantis said.
DeSantis also said he’s approved a plan for the state to spend $138 million on coronavirus response efforts that include contract tracing. Those efforts have been strained as Florida’s cases have increased.
But not everyone is responding when contact tracers attempt to discover the extent of the spread, he said.
“Another problem that you’ve seen is particularly the younger folks aren’t cooperating with contract tracers,” DeSantis said. “When they’re trying to call, they’re just not getting a lot of support.”
DeSantis added that COVID-19 is unlike previous pandemics in that many cases are asymptomatic, with many infected people unaware they have it, making it harder to run down their points of contact.
The briefing was held as the number of infections has reached nearly 1 in 100 people statewide, a total of 213,794 cases and 3,841 deaths.
The Monday positivity rate made available by the Florida Department of Health was more than 16%. In Miami-Dade County, which is in the epicenter of the pandemic in Florida, the positivity rate is about 20%.
The county has now had 51,058 cases and 1,057 deaths.
DeSantis on Tuesday also announced the opening of Florida’s 12th coronavirus-only longterm care facility.
In mid-June, the DeSantis administration ordered mandatory COVID-19 testing every two weeks for staff members at nursing homes and assisted living facilities.