“If you look at South Florida right now, this place is booming,” Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, recently gloated. “Los Angeles isn’t booming. New York City isn’t booming.”
To call what is happening in Florida an actual boom is a stretch. . . .
Yet in a country just coming out of the morose grip of coronavirus lockdowns, Florida feels unmistakably hot. (And not just because of global warming.)
“You can live like a human being,” Mr. DeSantis said. “You aren’t locked down. People aren’t miserable.” . . . .
To bask in that feeling — even if it is only that — is to ignore the heavy toll the coronavirus exacted in Florida, one that is not yet over.
More than 32,000 Floridians have died, an unthinkable cost that the state’s leaders rarely acknowledge. Miami-Dade County averaged more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases a day over the past two weeks, one of the nation’s most serious outbreaks.
Wow. A 1,000 new cases a day. Run for the hills. This is both disingenuous and dishonest. How many of the 1,000 are in the hospital? How many in ICU? And how many are dying? Are the bodies stacking up in the morgues?
Let me give you the reality for Sarasota and Bradenton area. You can go back and read my previous updates on Covid in Sarasota (A Covid Panic Update and Why Does the Liberal Media Refuse to Report Meaningful Data on Covid). So what is the current situation?
I am using the latest data from Sarasota Memorial Hospital (one of the largest in the area).
Covid is not overwhelming hospital resources in Sarasota:
Hospital / ICU Capacity
Today’s patient census: 757
Today’s COVID-positive patients total: 32 (34 yesterday)
Today’s ICU census: 58 (64 yesterday)
COVID-positive patients in ICU today: 8 (no change from yesterday)
Total hospital beds: 839
ICU bed capacity: 72
Only 13% of the patients in ICU are there because of Covid. Compare that to November 19, 2020–one out of four (i.e. 25%) of the patients were battling Covid. Total Covid patients as of Friday, March 12? Thirty two. That’s a significant decline from December 15, when there were 78 Covid patients in the hospital.
Covid test results are falling as well:
7-Day SMH positivity rate: 2.6% (3.4% for week ending March 1)
Patients who have tested positive (excludes repeat positives): 3,080 *
Patients who have tested negative: 60,356 *
Most importantly, the death rate hovers around 1 per day:
Patients hospitalized since outbreak began: 2,191 (2,188 yesterday)
Patients treated/discharged: 2,548 (2,543 yesterday) {outpatients treated in the ER but not hospitalized and inpatients who have been treated and discharged or cleared by infection control but not yet discharged}
Patient deaths: 226 (no change from yesterday)
It is not just the New York Times working overtime to paint Florida as a horror show. The Los Angeles Times jumped into the act as well:
California has a lower rate of deaths than Florida
If California had Florida’s COVID-19 death rate, roughly 6,000 more Californians would be dead. And if Florida had California’s death rate, roughly 3,000 fewer Floridians would be dead from COVID-19.
For every million residents of California, 1,385 Californians have died of COVID-19. But for every million residents of Florida, 1,538 Floridians have died of COVID-19.
But this is a case of lying with statistics. Consider the following. Florida has a larger number of people over the age of 65 (4.4 million) compared to only 1.8 million in California. We know that the age group most likely to succumb to Covid are the senior set, i.e., 65 and up. You would expect more people would die in Florida given that dramatically larger number of senior citizens running around, especially given that Florida is open for business. But that did not happen. Total deaths in California (as of this writing) is 54,892 dead compared to Florida’s 32,285.
What separates Ron DeSantis from the Governors of New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts is that our Governor protected the seniors inhabiting nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The Governors of those blue states allowed Covid infected people to be housed in senior facilities. Cuomo reportedly has the blood of more than 13,000 on his hands as a result of his insane policy.
New York’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 may be more than 50 percent higher than officials claim — because Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration hasn’t revealed how many of those residents died in hospitals, state Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday.
As time goes on the policy to battle Covid in Florida will vindicate Governor DeSantis and expose the folly and recklessness of former blue-state darlings like Cuomo and Newsom.
And now breaking news–this is the headline from today’s Sarasota Herald Tribune: No COVID-19 deaths reported in Sarasota County since March 10. How do you like them apples?
Larry,
Larry this post is just outragous. In addition to not pointing out the effectiveness of the state’s vaccination efforts you completely left out the lack of multiple years of #metoo scandals, which the press covered up, that is dooming Emmy award winner, the man who wrote the book on battling Covid, Andrew Cuomo.
https://nypost.com/2021/03/09/cuomos-covid-book-reportedly-fetched-seven-figure-advance/
Imagine how many dead Floridians and dead businesses we would have if the left’s favorite diversity drug using candidate had been electioneered into office.
Mr. Johnson can’t cover everything in a few lines. The reality is that the regime’s official press organ is about propaganda rather than reporting reality.
“Forgive me this Captain Obvious moment, but the New York Times is out of touch with reality.”
Sorry to tell you this but the NYT has been out of touch with reality for many years – at least since Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordon’s fake story about aluminium tubes and Iraq published on September 8th, 2002.
I never understood why if the story was fake enough for Miller to part ways with the NY Times, Michael R. Gordon got to stay. Although mentioning his questionable honesty is a good way to annoy certain Clintonists who get very annoyed when you do it..
A lot of people are moving to Florida for many reasons. One reason I never thought of but is being made known now is that parents are very very concerned for their children’s mental health and education. I applaud them!
In my idle lockdown time I peruse real estate ads for more “conservative” locales than living in California.
Always stunned to see what the dollar can buy outside of California and did spend playfully time looking at various locations around Florida over the past year. (Flat landscape, hurricanes, bugs and humidity being the obvious negatives for this California native.)
However, even in this idle preoccupation I noticed a huge increase in prices for FLA properties in just the past few month. Florida indeed has become “hot” – and it is not just the humidity. It is the climate. The political climate.
hang in there – tho they may resent it, & tho they may still attempt to weasel word their way around it, reality is becoming so obvious at this point that it finally appears to be basically forcing itself upon the mainstream media:
https://apnews.com/article/public-health-health-florida-coronavirus-pandemic-ron-desantis-889df3826d4da96447b329f524c33047
beyond their ‘studies’, & beyond their ‘projections’, there’s reality. long overdue…
Larry,
The NYTimes today is nothing more than an outhouse backside wipe. It’s only benefit is its replacement of the Sears & Roebuck Catalogue. Every time that the NYTimes prints, it spreads its feces.
Democrats quickly demanded zero tolerance for “covid” before the election because they knew it could never be achieved.
Thus their entire campaign agenda – blame Trump. Post-election with “covid” continuing to lurk, they are falling all over themselves in a mass of conflicted data, contradictions. and meaningless declarations.
“Covid” was weaponized to take down Trump. Mission accomplished. Now they must rebrand “covid” so their own words do not take down themselves too. Many in California are very reluctant to give up their “covid” hysteria cocoon. It gave their hapless lives meaning and structure. Democrats exploitation of “covid” was pure evil.
NB: “covid” is an actual pathogen. “Covid hysteria” became the fatal disease.
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A significant number – probably a majority – like being told what to do; beats thinking.
To these people making a decision beyond what to eat for breakfast is scary and should be avoided.
Being told to wear a mask and all the rest of the behavior being dictated by the fake “science” is a relief.
Makes them “fit in” and no thinking required.
These people elected Biden.
Chilling revelations about “who elected Biden”.
Project Veritas quotes from those inside Facebook, who cheered they met their goal of getting 4 million new Biden voters, and then some:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/facebook-voter-drive-swayed-election-to-biden-executive-caught-on-camera-as-saying_3737902.html?&utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&email=geebayx@gmail.com&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-17-4