State health officials say more than 1,200 new coronavirus cases were confirmed, Monday, bringing the total number of cases statewide to 13,629. The latest advisory from the Florida Department of Health brings the death toll to 254 people; that's 33 more deaths than on Monday, including a fourth person who has died from the virus under the care of the NCH Healthcare System in Collier County. New deaths also include a 69-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman in Manatee County.
The Health Department is now tracking spread of COVID-19 by ZIP codes and health officials are making public information about where cases are being monitored.
The Florida Department of Health is also encouraging residents to fill out an anonymous online survey about the coronavirus. The ten-step survey includes questions covering demographic information, travel history and health history. The survey can be found at strongerthanc19.com
Florida’s projected peak of COVID-19 cases is now expected to come sooner. Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation now say Florida will have its peak April 21, with 242 people dying in a single day. Previous projections had the peak happening May 3.
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations Founder Christopher Murray, MD, DPhil, said Florida’s peak will be sooner because of changes in their model and because Florida had a one-day spike that tapered off. “So, our peak is still out around April 23rd, because of that later implementation of the ‘stay-at-home’ order,” said Murray.
“But there’s quite a lot of uncertainty, you’ll see, in the forecast range because of the numbers going up and down.” Florida is projected to have a total of 6,770 deaths by August 4. The state is projected to be short 769 intensive care beds and will need a total of more than 2,000 ventilators.
Some South Florida hospitals are administering rapid coronavirus testing kits that can tell whether a patient is positive or negative in minutes CEO of the Cleveland Clinic of Florida Dr. Wael Barsoum, MD, said some groups are given priority over others for these rapid tests. “Most people don’t need an emergency answer,” said Dr. Barsoum. “So, when you think about how we prioritize these, obviously somebody that’s coming in for an emergency surgery we would want to know what their COVID-19 status is.” Other priority groups include nursing home patients and health care workers.
To fortify its beleaguered unemployment system, Florida officials are drawing 2,000 employees from other agencies to assist the Department of Economic Opportunity. The unemployment system has been a lightning rod for criticism of Gov. DeSantis and DEO Director Ken Lawson in recent weeks, amid system crashes and reports of hours-long wait times. Department of Revenue Executive Director Jim Zingale said his agency is lending 500 of its employees to the effort. He said his agency is uniquely situated to help because of the secure network at its disposal, used for its child support system. “The part of the system the Department of Revenue’s going to be working in is the final verification step before they do the calculation and mail out the checks,” said Zingale.
Gov. DeSantis announced, Monday, 250 employees have been added to field calls on unemployment assistance. Meanwhile, DeSantis said 72 servers have been added to handle the influx of unemployment claims being filed on the site. He says it can now handle up to 120,000 simultaneous connections. The state has clocked well over 400,000 new jobless claims in recent weeks, and that number is rising every day.
Gov. DeSantis also said he agrees people applying for unemployment benefits shouldn't receive assistance at a later date because of problems navigating the state's online application system. During a Monday roundtable, DeSantis said it makes sense to consider allowing back pay from the date a person lost their job. “If they’ve been frustrated from applying and then finally now the system’s better to apply then I think that that should be something that is taken into consideration,” said DeSantis.
“It’s not like they were just sitting on their hands not doing anything.”
DeSantis said he has asked the Department of Economic Opportunity to look into a plan for providing retroactive pay. The idea comes after weeks of complaints about an online application system that often crashed, which prevented people from applying for benefits.
Last week, Gov. DeSantis said he supports the idea of using rapid COVID-19 tests to 'spot check' residents of nursing homes in Florida. The News-Press reports DeSantis has not committed to how many of the tests the state will make available for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that house more than 150,000 residents in the state.
The Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration is now allowing "personal care attendants" to perform a broader scope of functions usually handled by certified nursing assistants due to a shortage of qualified healthcare workers.
Florida regulators are also waiving the live-scan fingerprinting requirement for new workers in such facilities because fingerprinting vendors are shut down. Instead, nursing homes are supposed to conduct other types of background checks.
As of Sunday, seven COVID-19 cases had been identified among residents and staff of a nursing home in Lee County. There have been two such cases in Collier and 250 such cases statewide.
