Florida breaks its record for weekly hospitalizations, making it one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hotspots.
Some 3,355 people were admitted to hospitals in Florida from Sunday, August 2 to Monday, the COVID-19 state dashboard showed.
Last Wednesday, 621 people were admitted to hospitals, The Orlando Sentinel reported. And in total, 30,785 people have been hospitalized in the state with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
“These are devastating numbers,” Drs. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, told NBC News.
The blame, Khan said, should be laid at the feet of Florida leaders who downplay the danger early and who have been slow to set up mask mandates and other public health measures.
“In Florida, there has been this ongoing controversy over the severity of the coronavirus crisis,” Khan said. ‘The issue of wearing masks has been a politicization. This should never have happened, and now we see the results. “
During the day, Florida reported 4,155 new cases and 91 deaths. The total number of cases Monday was 532,806, and the statewide death toll was 8,314 and increasing, according to the latest NBC News tally.
In terms of the total number of COVID-19 cases, Florida was just behind California, which leads the nation with 560,159, NBC News figures show.
Five states top Florida in total COVID-19 related deaths: New York (33,592), New Jersey (15,872), California (10,351), Texas (8,800) and Massachusetts (8,735).
The northeastern states recorded most of their cases and deaths in the early days of the pandemic, when public health officials were still struggling to find a way to deal with the deadly new virus and conflict – and often confusing – provide information on when people should be wearing masks and practicing social distance.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reported Monday that out of 54,002 tests reported Sunday, just 476 were positive – less than 1 percent of the total. And on Friday, Cuomo gave the green light to begin reopening state schools in the fall.
In contrast, Florida, Texas and other southern states such as Louisiana and Mississippi began to experience a rise in new cases and deaths after they – at the urging of President Donald Trump – began to resume in May just as the coronavirus began to spread. crest.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a dumb Trump ally, has been at the receiving end of harsh criticism for his reluctance to respond to the crisis, recently from Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, who met DeSantis on Sunday in an editorial in the New York blew Daily News.
“New York could definitely teach Florida a thing or two about this pandemic,” Gelber wrote. “When a hurricane hits our communities, our leaders stand side by side and lay out the facts. No one is falsely telling the potential impact of a storm to make people feel better. … For some reason, Gov. Ron decided DeSantis and President Trump said it was important instead to minimize COVID risk and let people know what good jobs they were doing. “
In other national developments:
- While the majority of COVID-19 victims remain elderly and sluggish, nearly 100,000 children contracted the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, according to an analysis by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. It revealed a 40 percent increase in COVID-19 cases in children between July 16 and 30, 30. In total, the report said 338,982 children were infected with the virus in the U.S., and half of U.S. states reported more than 5,000 confirmed cases in children.
- The Trump administration’s conflicting reports about wearing masks have caused widespread confusion, hampered the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and have even led to deaths, several health experts told NBC News. “People have died because we do not have consistent reports of wearing masks,” said Drs. Gregory Kirk, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. “I do not think this is really up for debate.” Trump himself has only recently begun wearing a mask in public.
- NBC News got a look in the lab in Wuhan, China that the Trump administration — without proof — is to blame for accidentally leaking the coronavirus and starting the pandemic. It was the first time a news organization had access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology since the outbreak began. Scientists brustled at Trump’s accusations. “It is unfortunate that we are targeted as scapegoats for the origin of the virus,” Institute Director Wang Yanyi told NBC News. U.S. intelligence came to light from an unidentified health crisis in Wuhan back in November and Trump said he first heard about it in January. It was not until March 13 that Trump declared a national emergency statement.
