Democrats and critics called on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to do more to address the state's spike in infections driven by the highly-transmissible omicron variant.
The omicron surge nearly doubled Florida's previous peak over the summer, as the state reported 46,923 new cases from Tuesday. According to data tracked by The Washington Post, the state broke the record for new daily infections on Christmas Eve and is now averaging more than 30,000 new infections a day.
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The number of cases has exploded by 182% compared to the previous seven-day period, while deaths continue to decline in Florida. Since the beginning of the coronaviruses, Florida has reported 4 million infections, making it the third state with at least 4 million infections.
Some in the state argue that DeSantis has not done enough to help against omicron, despite the fact that he recently signed multiple bills into law to curtail vaccine and mask mandates. The mayor of Orange County, Fla., claimed at a news conference this week that the funding for increased coronaviruses testing has yet to be received. He questioned why DeSantis has been mostly absent.
He said that they had not received any assistance from the state of Florida. All Florida residents should be angry and ask the question, "Where is our state?" Where is our governor? Where is Ron DeSantis?
According to Florida Politics, one of the most prominent Republican critics of President Joe Biden's handling of the Pandemic has not made a public appearance since December. On December 19th, he appeared on Fox News and said that he had yet to receive a coronaviruses booster shot.
At the time, the governor told Maria Bartiromo that people's individual decisions about what they want to do is what matters.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for the governor, said that omicron is responsible for most of the new infections in Florida. She said that the vaccine passports, mask mandates and other heavy-handed government interventions did not achieve their stated goals and that states such as California and New York are also breaking records for new infections.
Pushaw said that Florida is doing everything possible to expand access to clinically effective treatments. There are no mandates or lockdown policies that have proven to be effective in other parts of the country.
498 people are hospitalized in the intensive care unit in Florida with covid. Pushaw argued that the percentage of cases requiring hospitalization as of now is lower than it has been in the past.
The nation has seen a surge in coronaviruses, with the number of new infections increasing by over 240,000 a day. Ahead of New Year's Eve, Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, has urged Americans to rethink any potential party plans and encouraged smaller gatherings to help prevent the spread of the virus.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Wednesday that hospitalizations remain "comparatively low." She said that omicron causes milder symptoms for people who have been vaccined.
The national rate of vaccinations is slightly above the rate in Florida.
Omicron, which is the nation's dominant variant, has led to an increase in cases in Florida and across the country.
The recent focus from the administration has been on the U.S. government's pause on distributing the monoclonal antibodies that have been used as treatment for many coronaviruses who have not been vaccinations. Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo accused the Biden administration of preventing the distribution of the treatments from Eli Lilly. Treatments were not likely to be effective against omicron.
Ladapo wrote a letter to the Health and Human Services Secretary saying that the pause from the administration would cause an immediate and life threatening shortage of treatment options. Monoclonal antibody treatments are said to be an effective way to keep people out of the hospital.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach have seen their case totals increase by close to 400% in the last few days, according to the Miami Herald. The University of South Florida's Salemi told WPTV that the omicron variant could be cause for concern for the state's hospitals. It took more than a month for the average number of cases to be reached.
Salemi said that it happened in 12 days.
Pushaw said that the Jackson Health System in Miami reported Thursday that more than half of its patients who tested positive for the virus were "incidental positives" - people who were admitted to the hospital for other reasons and incidentally tested positive.
Over the past seven days, more than 776,000 new coronavirus tests have been administered in Florida, the second-highest total in the nation, according to data tracked by The Post. Twenty-two percent of those who've tested positive. The director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County acknowledged the lack of resources for more testing. He told the Associated Press that adding more testing sites wouldn't prevent the department from being overwhelmed.
A lot of people want to be tested.
The long lines for in-person testing were documented on social media. A journalist with NewsNation Now posted a video to his social media accounts showing a long line of cars waiting to enter a testing site.
The wait before you get into Tropical Park is when you have to zig zag around cones.
Democrats and critics accused him of being MIA. Annette Taddeo shared a message from a friend about a difficult situation at a hospital in her district, which is why she is running for governor.
She asked, "And where's Ron?"
On MSNBC, Fried was asked by host Tiffany Cross if she knew why the governor didn't make a public appearance during the holiday surge.
I have no idea. Fried said he hadn't seen him since December 17. I don't know where he is.
Pushaw said on Thursday that the governor has a wife and 3 kids ages 1 to 5, and it's not surprising if he wants to take a few days off at Christmas to spend time with his family.
She wrote that she didn't criticize Biden for going to the beach all week.
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