The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Florida increased by 398 yesterday, to 27,058 cases. According to the latest update from the Florida Department of Health, the total number of COVID-19-related deaths in the state has climbed to 823.
Statewide the number of hospitalizations now stands at 4,000. Of the nearly 268,000 coronavirus tests that have been conducted so far, 9.9% have come back positive.
Lee County continues to have the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the Southwest Florida region with 785 positive tests and 28 deaths. Collier County reports 470 cases and nine deaths. Manatee County has 433 cases and 33 deaths. In Sarasota there have been 291 cases and 28 deaths. Charlotte County reports 139 cases and 11 deaths.
There have been 44 cases in Hendry, where state health officials also reported the county's first death, Monday. That case involves a 77-year-old man from LaBelle. In Glades County there have been five confirmed cases of the virus and one death.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Florida is processing unemployment claims more slowly than any other state. Florida is at the bottom among all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of unemployed residents it's serving. Less than three percent of the more than 1.5 million unemployment benefit claims filed by Floridians since March 15 have been paid out.
A new website launched Monday by the Department of Economic Opportunity reports 40,193 unemployed Floridians have received their benefits. Florida is already among the strictest states when it comes to unemployment benefits, which tap out at $275 per week for just 12 weeks.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken steps to speed up the unemployment benefits filing process. Last week, he removed DEO Executive Director Ken Lawson from oversight of the CONNECT unemployment system and placed that responsibility in the hands of Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter. Satter said hundreds of call center operators have been rushed through training, paper applications are being processed and more than 100 computer servers have been brought in to help with the backlog.
Gov. DeSantis held an introductory meeting, Monday, of the task force he's assembled to map out the state's reopening from the COVID-19 shutdown. The AP reports, task force members include powerful political leaders, legislators and business executives from companies including Disney, Universal, Publix and Florida Power and Light.
Democrats are criticizing the task force member selection, noting that it doesn't include any medical doctors. The only healthcare industry representative on the committee is a hospital executive. The task force also includes every member of the Florida Cabinet, except for Agriculture Commissioner, Nikki Fried, who is the only Democrat in the cabinet. The rest are Republicans like DeSantis. Democrats say the committee only includes DeSantis loyalists.
The task force is to meet by phone every day this week until Friday, when the governor says he hopes to be able to make a report. Medical professional joined Democrats for a news conference Monday morning to urge the governor to not reopen the state.
There were 1,332 new coronavirus cases in Florida this weekend. That’s a dip compared to last weekend when there were nearly 2,000. Former President of Palm Beach County Medical Society Brent Schilinger, M.D., said the change doesn’t mean we’re safe. He says projections of when Florida will reach its peak are all over the place.
“In March we were told that Florida would reach its surge, a peak in new COVID cases by the middle of May. Then a week later it was forecast that April 23 would be the peak,” said Schilinger.
“Then the next week, which was last Monday, we heard that the surge would be May 6 and then a report that just came out three days ago on Friday said Oh we’ve already passed our peak it was April 2.”
Schillinger said until a large scale expansion of testing is done, social distancing should be practiced. Less than two percent of Floridians have been tested. Schillinger worries those who are asymptomatic and don’t have a test could continue spreading the virus. U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala (FL-27) said she believes a national plan should be formed instead of all 50 states deciding when to reopen.
The Spanish Flu or H1N1 caused a global pandemic in 1918 infecting nearly 500 million people. Shalala also said she believes leaders should look into the past when deciding if the time is right to get back to business. “They thought they had the virus whipped because they did a certain amount of testing and then people went out on the streets and the beaches and the disease spiked again, much worse than the first time,” said Shalala. “And so we have to pay attention to the public health experts.”
Congresswoman Shalala is worried scaling back social distancing and reopening businesses could lead to history repeating itself. She agrees with health experts that more testing needs to be done before people can get back to their lives before the pandemic began.
Gov. DeSantis extended an executive order last week that suspends vacation rentals. Some owners of such properties are feeling singled out by this decision. The restriction only applies to short-term rentals of homes and condominiums.
Hotels, inns, resorts, and long-term rentals are not affected. Executive Director of the Florida Vacation Rental Management Association, David Hanks, said property managers are being hurt by the order.
“They're losing thousands upon thousands of dollars a day, because some of them have all these bookings that have been cancelled because of the virus,” said Hanks.
“Now on top of that, they aren't able to take in any new bookings because the governor suspended us. So those bookings are still coming to Florida. They are just going to another lodging.”
Small businesses related to the industry, like landscapers and cleaning crews are also seeing decreased business because of the closures.
Nitin Bawa, M.D., a doctor of internal medicine in Destin, said the Plexiglas panels so common now in grocery and retail stores offer no real protection from the coronavirus.
“When I go to my grocery store I have to stand behind a little plastic barrier. But the fact of the matter is that small droplets, even when we speak, they stay suspended,” said Bawa. “So even though the next person might be six feet behind me, when he comes into my little cloud of droplets, he could still get sick.
Dr. Bawa said the most effective way to prevent that is simply to wear any kind of mask. He'd like to see mask-wearing made mandatory in order to halt the spread of the disease and speed the economic recovery.
