Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
The trip is back on.
Gov. Rick Scott will head to Washington D.C., next week to push for Zika funding. The governor’s office said Scott will travel to the nation’s capital on Sept. 13 and 14.
The Naples Republican was scheduled to travel to D.C. earlier this week to meet with members of Congress and ask them to immediately pass a Zika funding package. He postponed the trip to stay in Tallahassee to monitor Hurricane Hermine recovery efforts.
The trip comes one week after the Senate failed to pass a $1.1 billion bill to help combat the spread of Zika.
There were 756 cases of Zika in Florida as of Friday. According to the Department of Health, 56 of those cases were locally transmitted. The DOH reported 84 cases involved pregnant women. Health officials believe ongoing transmissions are only taking place in small areas of two communities, Wynwood and Miami Beach, in Miami-Dade County.
And that’s where the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services found another mosquito sample that tested positive for Zika. This marks the second time this month the department has detected mosquitoes carrying Zika.
“The fact that we have identified a fourth Zika-positive mosquito pool in Miami Beach serves as further confirmation that we must continue our proactive and aggressive approach to controlling the mosquito population, including our recent decision to begin aerial spraying in combination with larvicide treatment by truck,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez in a statement. “We will continue to work in close collaboration with the health and environmental experts and the City of Miami Beach to keep our community safe from the Zika virus.”
Much like the first three positive mosquito samples announced earlier this month, this sample was collected in Miami Beach.
