Jacob Ogles
The number of Floridians dead from COVID-19 nearly doubled since the state entered Phase One of its reopening.
Phase Two starts Friday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a limited Phase One reopening beginning at noon on May 4. At that point, Florida’s Department of Health reported 1,399 Floridians had died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
On the morning of June 4, the state said 2,607 Florida residents were now dead from the ailment.
Throughout that month, DeSantis repeatedly and often angrily said Florida better contained the coronavirus than most states. Frequently, state officials noted Florida “flattened the curve,” meaning the state saw a steady number of new cases but not the exponential growth some models predicted would overwhelm hospitals. That stands in contrast to places like New York, where mass outbreaks caught health care workers underprepared.
But this week, Florida saw two consecutive days with more than 1,000 new cases. Tuesday, there were 1,222 new positive tests for COVID-19 reported. Wednesday saw 1,303 new infections made public.
The peak in new cases remains April 3, when Florida reported 1,313 new positive tests in a day.
Helen Aguirre Ferre, director of Communications for the Governor’s Office, stressed an increase in positive cases in large part represents an increased testing capacity since the start of the pandemic.
“It is the purpose of testing to determine how many individuals are COVID positive. The Governor has emphasized the importance of testing and is pleased that many have taken the opportunity to be tested at no cost to the individual,” Ferre said.
“Florida has increased its testing capabilities with approximately 30 walk-up and drive-through testing sites, which to date have tested more than 250,000 individuals. It is common sense to anticipate that the more we test the more we will find COVID positive individuals. Most important is the number of ICU beds and ventilators that are being used for COVID patients. In Florida, with more than 6,000 ventilators and 1,500 ICU beds available, the state has 25% availability to handle any surge.”
A look at the top numbers shows the cumulative number of cases has never let up.
As of May 4, the state reported 36,897 total cases of COVID-19. A total 6,119 had been hospitalized with the disease in Florida.
On of June 4, the total cases rose to 60,183. Of those, 10,652 were hospitalized.
That means the intervening month saw 23,286 new individuals test positive, 4,533 hospitalized, and 1,208 die.
Phase One reopening brought with it the restoration of restaurant dining room service and retail openings, first with 25% occupancy and later 50%. Nonessential businesses were allowed to open once again as long as social distancing could be applied. Gyms, in the latter part of May, were able to reopen.
That reopening followed a month-long statewide lockdown order, and many communities issued local restrictions for days or weeks before that.
The Governor’s stay-at-home order went into effect at noon on April 3. At that point, the Health Departed reported 9,585 total infections in Florida, 1,215 hospitalizations and 163 resident deaths.
The first reported cases of coronavirus infections became public in Florida on March 1.
Notably, no statewide order was ever issued to close beaches but nearly every coastal county in Florida closed or severely limited beach access some time in April. As of June 4, every county except Miami-Dade loosened those restrictions. Legoland Florida and Universal Orlando became the first theme parks to reopen in Florida this week.
Florida enters Phase Two on Friday, which will allow the opening of bars, movie theaters and casinos. Gyms will be allowed to open at full capacity.
14 comments
NoMoTrump
June 4, 2020 at 5:43 pm
Is anyone surprised? With Phase Two, deaths will increase ten fold.
Sonja Fitch
June 5, 2020 at 6:42 am
The duffus Desantis has made it clear from the get-go. That lives lost are ok. Duffus Desantis does not give a shit about Florida folks. The white boy Desantis gonna please his goptrump leader trump
Inquiring Minds
June 5, 2020 at 8:01 am
Can you publish percentages for those dates. That will equalize for increased testing.
Another Garbage Article
June 5, 2020 at 11:34 am
He will not because it does not fit his narrative.
He actually pointed out that the number of deaths since Phase I reopening is *about* the same as during the lockdown (look at the chart at the end). Right, re-opening did not increase deaths significantly, but it let people work to buy food for their families.
I can only assume that he doesn’t want to say it that way — he wrote the article, he got to pick what he said. “Deaths double since re-opening!” fits the garbage press agenda, which only barely includes reporting facts.
You know what? The deaths are going to double again sometime in the future — it’s going to take a while, but it will happen.
Bill Williams
June 7, 2020 at 12:42 pm
Agree,
Sonja Fitch
June 5, 2020 at 3:01 pm
Deaths are not about testing. Them dead! Stupid
Joseph Johnson
June 5, 2020 at 6:45 pm
Based on the table in the article, there were fewer new cases, fewer hospitalizations, and fewer deaths during Phase 1 than during the lockdown. Do the math. I don’t understand how you can draw the conclusion that Phase 1 resulted an increase in any statistic mentioned.
RUSSELL GREEN
June 5, 2020 at 9:14 pm
These are not new cases we are just testing more than before fl.is doing great
Don Walters
June 6, 2020 at 12:10 pm
How many of those deaths were in nursing homes, where restrictions have not been loosened?
Bill
June 6, 2020 at 2:28 pm
The Hospital ICU SEEN ON THE NEWS MEDIA IN New York with patient filling up the ICU were actually filmed in the ICU in Italy because the Hospital in New York actually had a few patient, Big Pharam agenda to make it look really bad so to scare you into taken their Poison vaccines
DisplacedCTYankee
June 8, 2020 at 8:44 am
Bill: u spel gud.
Sherry
June 6, 2020 at 3:24 pm
I would like to see the relative %rates over time. That would help us understand how much of the increase in raw numbers is due to more testing and how much is an actual increase in spread.
Elizabeth
June 6, 2020 at 7:09 pm
“While not overwhelming”? People do not understand that any number of cases that are not being quarantined, contact traced, contacts quarantined for 2 weeks, and any cases developed by contacts traced and quarantined in the same manner, means the virus is out of control. Cases will continue to increase and more and more people will die.
People seem to think there is an acceptable level of cases per day. “Flattening the curve” only means that the daily number of cases will not overwhelm the capacity of hospitals. It does not mean the daily level is under control or will stay flat.
China did not open up at all until their NATIONAL daily cases were in the range of 20-50. A number they could easily control and reduce to zero by contact tracing procedures. China has since tested 100% of their population and only found 200 new cases, which were quickly quarantined and contact traced to eliminate them.
The only way to stop this pandemic is to reduce new cases to zero. The reason COVID-19 became a pandemic is the extremely high transmission rate of the virus. The US states have been opening up with high daily rates, and most have not put their contact tracing plans in place yet. In most states the daily rate is too large to contact trace every case.
The other big problem in the US is that states are not closing their borders. So even if one state has very few cases, while other states still have significant numbers of new daily cases, one infected person from out of state can seed a state which has no cases and quickly start an increasing number of cases.
The only way the curve was flattened was by shutting down and preventing contact between people so the spread of the virus was reduced. Once you open up and infected people are making contact with lots of people again, everything starts over. From my experience and pictures, the idea that people are staying 6 feet away from all other people is a joke.
Boo
June 9, 2020 at 1:07 pm
I find it amusing that you believe any stats provided by the Chinese government.
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