(02-25-2021, 04:59 PM)fredtoast Wrote: All five of Florida's largest cities combined only account for about 12% of the state's population.

NYC accounts for 43% of the population of New York.

MILLIONS of people ride the New York subway EACH DAY while there is not a single subway system in the entire state of Florida.

There is no logical comparison.

Quote:Florida House moves forward on violent protest crackdown





The contentious “anti-riot” legislation supported by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got its second of three committee hearings in the House on Wednesday.
Supporters of the bill say it would help crack down on violent protests, while opponents argue it’s an attack on First Amendment rights.


The Republican-controlled House Justice Appropriations Subcommittee signed off Wednesday on the House proposal (HB 1) in a party-line vote, after hearing from dozens of people who condemned the measure.

State Sen. Danny Burgess, R-District 20, signed on as a sponsor of the combatting public disorder act after seeing a business in his district burned down during the unrest over the summer.

“Martin Luther King stood for peaceful protest, plain and simple. And that’s what we’re here to protect and preserve,” said Burgess.


Social justice groups argue the bill seeks to silence their ability to protest.

“This is an anti-Black bill. This is an anti-brown bill,” said Rep. Michele Rayner, D-District 70.


Demonstrators at the Florida Capitol argued the bill, which increases penalties for crimes committed during a riot, will lead to the arrest of peaceful protestors.

“We’re supposed to trust the police department to discern rioting from protesting -- what we’re doing right now. Do we trust the police right now?” said Christina Kittle with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee.

RELATED: Demonstrators travel from Jacksonville to Tallahassee to rally against ‘anti-riot’ bill
[url=https://www.news4jax.com/news/2021/03/02/demonstrators-travel-from-jacksonville-to-tallahassee-to-rally-against-anti-riot-bill/][/url]
The response from the crowd was a resounding “no.”

But House bill sponsor Juan Alphonso Fernandez-Barquin, R-District 119, argues his bill will work to the benefit of those seeking to exercise their First Amendment rights.

“If these agitators show up, it is in the best interest of the peaceful protesters to point who these individuals are out to the law enforcement and that law enforcement deals with them directly,” said Fernandez-Barquin.


There are also concerns with a provision that would allow those arrested during a riot to be held without bond until their first appearance in court.

Fernandez-Barquin said the policy is in response to what he described as ‘fringe groups’ immediately bailing people out after they were arrested in cities like Portland and Seattle during riots in the cities.

He explained the intent is only to hold those arrested overnight.

“So that individual does not return back to the riot and keep participating in the riot,” said Fernandez-Barquin.

The legislation also would allow citizens to petition the Governor’s Office if their local government moves to decrease funding for law enforcement.
The local budget could then be altered by the State Administration Commission.

Opponents see the bill as a crackdown on the racial justice movement spurred by the death of George Floyd, but the governor has stood by his claim that the legislation is not about politics.


Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, also supports the bill.

“We’re just basically putting a law in the books saying that type of angry, violent protests, political angry speech is not welcome in the state of Florida,” he said.

The legislation would make misdemeanors into felonies and temporarily deny bail for suspects. Patronis says it makes an important statement while protecting protestors.

“If you want to come and demonstrate and express your concerns and do it in a peaceful manner, God bless you. That’s what this state is all about,” Patronis said.

Democrat Nikki Fried, the state’s commissioner of agriculture, said she doesn’t believe the bill is about law and order.

“What House Bill 1 does is not only does it attack First Amendment speech rights, but it’s making sure that more Black and brown people go into the jails, into the prison system. That’s what they’re trying to do. This has nothing to do with trying to have law and order,” Fried said.


The bill faces one more committee before heading to the House floor for a full vote

(03-04-2021, 11:17 AM)GMDino Wrote: DeSantis and his republican co-conspirators are attempting to limit free speech.  Something I assume everyone here will find a bad idea.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/florida/2021/03/03/anti-riot-bill-gets-2nd-of-3-committee-hearings-in-florida-house/





I agree that it will probably be used as a fund raising tool by the police eventually too.

Quote:Florida’s top Democratic officials have called for federal investigations into Governor Ron DeSantis for allegedly prioritising vaccine doses to wealthy donors in exchange for political favours.
The Republican governor is coming in for scrutiny after reports alleged that almost all communities belonging to Mr DeSantis’s high-value donors received their jabs from mobile clinics by mid-January, while vaccinations have been much harder to come by for lower-income neighbourhoods.

State agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried and state Democratic Senate leader Gary Farmer called on the FBI to investigate what they called the potential wrongdoing by the government.
“If this isn’t public corruption, I don’t know what is,” Ms Fried said at a news conference. “I will not stand by and let our vaccines be used as political gain and to go to be auctioned by the highest bidders while so many of our Floridians are suffering.”

They demanded an investigation into whether $3.9m of donations made to the governor’s political action committee were linked to vaccination distribution in what they say appeared to be a “pay to play” scheme.


On Thursday, senator Gary Farmer slammed what he described as the governor’s “vaccine auction” and wrote a letter to US attorney general Monty Wilkinson.

“The prioritisation of the wealthy and affluent for vaccinations is morally reprehensible in its own right, but the exchange of hard-to-get vaccines for political contributions is nothing short of criminal,” he said.
[/color]

Representative Charlie Crist has also raised concerns over the vaccine distribution in Florida and wrote a letter in February to the acting attorney general to investigate the governor allegedly favouring “political allies and donors” over higher-risk communities.

Mr DeSantis has strongly denied the allegations and said the vaccine drive was administered by “a South Florida hospital” and not his office. His office also issued a statement, calling the allegations a "manufactured narrative with political motivations".


“That was not a site that we were involved in in the Keys,’’Mr DeSantis said at a news conference on Thursday in Crystal River.

On Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported that the “ultra-exclusive” Ocean Reef Club community in the Florida Keys, which accounts for dozens of Mr DeSantis’s donors, had 1,200 people vaccinated by mid-January while many Floridians struggled to get their jabs.

Quote:‘We’ve Seen Enough…Please Don’t Come Here’: Miami Beach Mayor Imposes 8 PM Curfew, Closes Bridges To Control Spring Break Crowds

By Sarah RumpfMar 20th, 2021, 6:10 pm

The city of Miami Beach has declared a state of emergency imposing an 8 pm curfew and closing bridges at 10 pm to non-local traffic, as maskless crowds have overwhelmed the city’s entertainment district at night.

The combination of Florida’s mild spring weather and the lower pandemic restrictions than in many other states had brought overwhelming crowds, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told CNN Newsroom anchor Ana Cabrera about the order, explaining that the city had been dealing with “a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure,” with the crowds getting “worse every single day.”

“During the day, it’s pretty tame,” Gelber said, saying that visitors were enjoying the beaches and the hotels and restaurants were “doing a pretty good job with outdoor dining.” However, he continued, the entertainment district at night “becomes a whole different scene,” which he described as “like a rock concert, wall-to-wall people over blocks and blocks.”

The violence had been escalating, said Gelber, with someone shooting a weapon into the air and what he described as “a riot.” The city “feels like a tinder…like any match could set it off,” he said.

“We don’t want to wait to take these kinds of actions in the wake of a tremendous tragedy. We want to take it now when we’ve seen enough. We have definitely seen enough.”

Cabrera mentioned that Miami Beach had made over 900 arrests — 300 of them for felony offenses — as they fought to control the spring break crowds. At least half of those arrested were from outside of Florida.

“So what is you message to people now perhaps eyeing a summer vacation in Florida?” asked Cabrera.

“We’re always going to be one of the best destinations in the world…but right now if you’re coming here because you’ve been pent up and you want to cut loose, and you think anything goes, please don’t come here. We have extra police everywhere. We’re going to arrest people, and we have been. We’re going to keep order.”

“If you’re coming here to go crazy, go somewhere else,” Gelber concluded. “We don’t want you.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

Quote:Miami Will Keep Issuing Citations For Covid Violations—Defying DeSantis’ Order


[/url]Nicholas Reimann
Forbes Staff

[url=https://www.forbes.com/business]Business
I'm a news reporter for Forbes, primarily covering the U.S. South.




TOPLINE
 
The Miami-Dade Police Department announced Thursday it planned to resume giving out citations for violations of county Covid guidelines, in defiance of an order issued by Gov. Ron DeSantis canceling Covid-related fines in what is the latest instance of a directive from the outspoken governor being ignored.


Miami Beach police officers direct people out of the entertainment district as a curfew from 8 p.m. ... [+]
 GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS
Police will fine residents who violate the county's mask mandate or violate curfew, according to the Miami Herald.
DeSantis issued an executive order on March 10 as "a categorical, statewide remission of fines related to COVID-19 restrictions."

Miami police and other law enforcement offices across the state had stopped issuing fines since then.
A joint statement Monday from officials in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties lambasted the governor's decision, saying "now is not the time to throw caution to the wind."
CRUCIAL QUOTE
"Miami-Dade has worked for months to get the spread of the virus under control, including putting in place common-sense measures to protect local residents," police said in a statement. "We must continue to follow the protocols that we know are effective in preventing the spread of the virus."

Following a review to clarify next steps based on the Governor’s March 10 executive order, the Miami-Dade Police Department will resume efforts to enforce Miami Dade County‘s COVID-related Emergency Orders through the issuance of civil citations. pic.twitter.com/8lc9ujfuY7

— Miami-Dade Police (@MiamiDadePD) March 18, 2021

 

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW
It's not clear how police can enforce the restrictions given DeSantis' order. The Miami-Dade Police Department did not respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
KEY BACKGROUND
Despite criticism from health experts and pleas from local officials for enforcement authority, DeSantis has continually sided against most coronavirus-related restrictions throughout the pandemic. He allowed all restaurants and bars to open at 100% capacity starting in September, for instance—months ahead of any other large state doing the same. But recently, some orders from DeSantis have just been ignored. Earlier this month, CVS pharmacies defied state orders by allowing teachers under the age of 50 to receive vaccines—in line with federal guidelines—despite Florida at the time prioritizing seniors for vaccinations. Another order from DeSantis, though not Covid-related, was defied last month when Palm Beach County refused to lower its flags to honor the late conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh. On Thursday, DeSantis held a roundtable discussion that included Dr. Scott Atlas, the controversial Trump administration official who largely scoffed at recommendations that were the medical consensus, like mask wearing and social distancing.

2) Reminder— Scott Altas once claimed that opening schools has no risk to teachers or kids. Boy we know that isn’t true—plenty of proven transmission. #COVID19

They key is masks and ventilation and air exchange for safe schools.

pic.twitter.com/V2EgUTpa5Q

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) March 18, 2021

 

TANGENT
Florida is a massive spring break destination, and local officials, like Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber (D), have expressed concern of the danger vacationers might pose to public health in the state. Air travel last week reached its highest level so far during the pandemic.

Quote:Column: Dear news media, Fla. Gov. DeSantis’ COVID record isn’t a success, but a failure

[color=var(--primary-text-color)]Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: What does his COVID record really tell us?
(Associated Press)

By MICHAEL HILTZIK[color=var(--secondary-color-6)]BUSINESS COLUMNIST [/color]
[color=var(--secondary-text-color)]MARCH 19, 2021 11:10 AM PT[/color]
[color=var(--primary-text-color)]Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, must have magic at his fingertips.[/color][/color]
[color=var(--primary-text-color)]
We’re not talking about his purported skill at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re talking about his ability to snow the press into taking at face value the claim that his refusal to impose stringent anti-virus rules and regulations has been an unalloyed success.[/color]
[color=var(--primary-text-color)]
The latest publication to fall into line is Politico, which on Thursday posted an article headlined, “How Ron DeSantis won the pandemic.” A companion piece observed that he has “survived the pandemic,” and that “Florida has fared no worse, and in some ways better, than many other states — including its big-state peers.”
[/color]

Quote:[color=var(--secondary-color-8)]We’ve succeeded, and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative.[/color]

[color=var(--secondary-color-6)]FLORIDA GOV. RON DESANTIS, LAST MAY


Leaving aside that this sort of coverage treats the coronavirus battle as if it’s a sporting contest deserving of up-to-the-minute color commentary, the best that could be said about these judgments is that they’re premature.[/color]

The struggle against the pandemic is still going on — in Florida and globally — so why the rush to declare DeSantis the “winner” of a war that could yet be lost?

Politico isn’t alone in anointing DeSantis the victor. So too has the Associated Press, which on March 13 posted an article stating, inadequately, that “despite their differing approaches, California and Florida have experienced almost identical outcomes in COVID-19 case rates.”

CNN came to a similar conclusion. “DeSantis’ gamble to take a laissez faire approach appears to be paying off,” it reported — though it was careful enough to qualify that its judgment applied “at least politically, at least for now.”


Indeed, DeSantis’ record on COVID-19 is attracting attention strictly because of politics. He’s being touted as a leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, as silly as it is to speculate today on such a distant a horse race. DeSantis’ COVID record is presented as Exhibit 1 for his front-runner status.


Yet it’s important to recognize that a state’s success or failure in combating COVID-19 depends on a multitude of factors, many of which are outside a governor’s control. Those who claim credit for good-looking statistics may be setting themselves up for a boatload of blame if the numbers turn ugly.

As we’ve remarked before, one thing that sets DeSantis apart from most other governors, red or blue, is his tendency to present himself as the victim of anti-conservative coverage.

He grouses unceasingly about being overlooked by the unsympathetic news media: “We’ve succeeded,” he said truculently on May 20, “and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative.”


[color=var(--secondary-text-color)]BUSINESS
Column: My apology to Florida Gov. DeSantis: Sorry, you’re even worse than I imagined
[color=var(--secondary-text-color)]June 26, 2020

Assertions about DeSantis’ success rest on several pillars. One is the claim that Florida hasn’t done quite as badly as experts predicted last year, when DeSantis refused to shut down his state and enforce social hygiene measures such as mask wearing. Another is that the differences in outcomes between Florida and other states, particularly in COVID-related deaths, are supposedly minimal.[/color][/color]

The judgment also depends on treating every state as a homogeneous entity, eliding variations of urban vs. rural, rich neighborhoods vs. poor, Black vs. white, and so on. And on treating every state as a hermetically sealed fortress unto itself, as though policies in one state have no impact beyond its borders.

All those factors demand close scrutiny. Since that seldom happens, it falls to us to dive into the details. We’ll match Florida’s experience against California’s, since California is among the more frequent punching bags for DeSantis and his fan base.

[color=var(--primary-text-color)]Florida’s per-capita death rate has exceeded California’s throughout the pandemic.
(Los Angeles Times)

Let’s take it from the top. It’s arguably true that Florida’s record on the pandemic hasn’t been as bad as was forecast. That’s not the same as saying it’s good. Florida’s COVID death rate is about 155 per 100,000 population, according to data from Johns Hopkins University reported by the Washington Post. California’s is about 141.[/color]

The difference isn’t trivial. As my colleagues Soumya Karlamangla and Rong-Gong Lin II observed earlier this month, “If California had Florida’s death rate, roughly 6,000 more Californians would be dead from COVID-19 .... And if Florida had California’s death rate, roughly 3,000 fewer Floridians would be dead from COVID-19.”

As of Friday, Johns Hopkins counts 33,219 COVID deaths in Florida, which has a population of about 21.5 million, compared with 55,795 in California, which has a population of about 40 million. Those figures are a reproach to anyone who tries to assert that the war on COVID-19 has been “won,” in either state.

Yet statewide statistics tell a partial story at best. It’s especially misleading to apply a broad brush to California, one of the most geographically and demographically diverse states in the union. So let’s break the numbers down by county.

By far the worst death rate among large California counties is Los Angeles, at a total of 224.5 deaths per 100,000 residents through the pandemic thus far. As Karlamangla and Lin have explained, L.A. County was uniquely vulnerable to the pandemic, given its high levels of poverty and homelessness and its preponderance of densely packed neighborhoods and multigenerational housing.

L.A. also has a large population of immigrants, many of whom may have been discouraged from seeking COVID testing or treatment during 2020 by the Trump administration’s “public charge” policy, which threatened immigrants with deportation if they sought public services.

The county also has a large population of essential workers — those with little choice but to travel outside their homes to work, heightening their potential for exposure and for passing infection to others.

At the other end of the scale from Los Angeles, however, is San Francisco, which has one of the lowest COVID death rates among major metropolitan areas in the country — 51.4 per 100,000 population.

The Bay Area’s record testifies to the efficacy of stringent anti-pandemic measures: Its counties locked down early and firmly, observe mask wearing and social distancing rules fairly well, and have been cautious about reopening.

No major county in Florida has a death rate anywhere as low as San Francisco’s. The lowest rate is that of Monroe County (the Florida Keys) at 65 per 100,000 population. County authorities shut down tourist businesses on the Keys at the end of March, even erecting roadblocks on U.S. 1, the only highway into or out of the Keys, to prevent non-residents from coming in; the roadblocks came down June 1 but a stringent mask requirement remains in effect in Key West.

The death rates in most of Florida’s major population centers resemble that of Los Angeles: Miami-Dade, the largest, has a rate of 210 deaths per 100,000, Palm Beach 173, Pinellas County (St. Petersburg) 156.

In granular terms, in other words, Florida hasn’t done better than California. Both states are mosaics of rules and regulations, and in both states local conditions and local measures trump those of state governments.

Miami and the Tampa Bay metroplex both have tried to encourage mask wearing and social distancing because their leaders recognize that they face different conditions from rural and less dense regions that have followed DeSantis’ policies; California also has placed pandemic policies in the hands of county officials, with uneven effects.

Florida hasn’t done better than California despite different policies — in the parts of each state that resemble each other demographically, the challenge is similar, and so is the weaponry. And when you put it all together, Florida still does worse overall than California.
Some of DeSantis’ defenders argue that Florida has done better than should have been expected, given that its population is among the oldest, on average, in the country and therefore its residents are especially susceptible to COVID-19.

This is a curious argument, since DeSantis and his sycophants have asserted that the key to his success in combating the pandemic has been taking special care of his state’s seniors. But he can’t have things both ways—either the state’s record has suffered because of its demographics, or he has triumphed over the demographics. Which is it?

One issue that gets consistently glossed over in reporting on DeSantis’ “win” is the degree to which Florida may be exporting its pandemic problem. The state’s beaches and coastal entertainment zones were wide open during last year’s college spring break, and are again this year.
DeSantis loves to boast about the tourism boom in South Florida, but his braggadocio should be a warning for other states. That’s because there are signs that the spring break carousers simply brought their infections and their consequences home with them last year.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Ball State University found that COVID case rates in counties with universities that scheduled breaks early in the spring last year rose within a week of students returning to campus, compared to rates in counties with few college students. Mortality rates began to rise in those locations three to five weeks after students returned, suggesting that students transmitted their infections to higher-risk (that is, older) people.

They also found that universities with students more likely to travel by air, to New York City and to Florida “contribute[d] more to COVID-19 spread than ... universities with less of this travel.”

To put it another way, Florida may welcome spring tourists with open arms, knowing they’ll be someone else’s problem when they become sick and spread their illness far and wide. The virus knows no geographic boundaries, and it’s perfectly content to hitch a ride.

Finally, what about Florida’s economic “boom”? Here’s DeSantis, in full gloat, courtesy of CNN: “If you look at what’s happening in South Florida right now, I mean this place is booming. It would not be booming if it was shut down. Los Angeles isn’t booming. New York City’s not booming. It’s booming here because you can live like a human being.”

The breadth of this boom is open to question. The news articles painting DeSantis as a political winner often feature quotes from contented business owners, but they tend to be bar and restaurant owners and other petty merchants happy that their establishments have remained open.
Politico observed that California’s Disneyland has remained closed while Orlando’s Walt Disney World is open, but fails to mention that Disney World imposes strict social hygiene measures, including mask wearing and social distancing that aren’t part of the DeSantis playbook.

Economic booms are relative. Compared to California, Florida’s economy is a popgun. Its per capita gross domestic product is about $51,200; California’s is $77,500. Florida’s median household income was about $59,200 in 2019; California’s was about $80,440.

Of more pressing significance, Florida’s state budget faced a shortfall of more than $2 billion (at least before Congress enacted a pandemic relief bill with billions of dollars in help for states”). California has recorded a windfall of some $15.5 billion.

The discrepancy isn’t due to differences in civic virtue, but to the states’ divergent tax structures. Florida has no income tax, but California depends heavily on its income tax, which is sensitive to the sort of investment gains seen during 2020. California’s windfall isn’t expected to last beyond this year.

The media’s rush to crown Ron DeSantis as having vanquished COVID-19 looks more like a rush to get in front of a parade every day. But it’s a mug’s game. A lot can happen between now and the next presidential election, and as we’ve seen, the coronavirus is ready and willing to prove everybody wrong.

(03-22-2021, 11:36 PM)mallorian69 Wrote: Personally I'd like to see a ticket with Nikki Haley for president with Candace Owen's for VP. Could you imagine all the liberal heads that would explode at the thought of two women of color on the Republican ticket? It would be absolutely gorgeous!

Democrats couldn't use any of their normal attacks against those two. Can't play the race card. Can't call them sexist. Can't call Haley anti immigrant. Take those out of the equation and the left would only have blanks left in their arsenal.

(03-22-2021, 11:47 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Can you imagine how many conservative heads would explode if democrats put a straight, white, Christian man on the ticket?  They'd have no ammo against the guy.  How are they going to accuse him of being anti-white, anti-Christian, and anti-traditional family?  Heads would explode.

(03-23-2021, 03:58 PM)mallorian69 Wrote: They already did that and now we have a senile pedophile in the white house.

Quote:California isn't seeing COVID-19 spikes like New York and Florida. Can we keep it up?


[/url][url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=California%20isn%27t%20seeing%20COVID-19%20spikes%20like%20New%20York%20and%20Florida.%20Can%20we%20keep%20it%20up%3F&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Fcalifornia-isnt-seeing-covid-19-172045517.html%3Fsoc_src%3Dsocial-sh%26soc_trk%3Dtw%26tsrc%3Dtwtr&via=YahooNews]
Luke Money
Tue, March 23, 2021, 1:20 PM·5 min read


Despite rising coronavirus case rates in other parts of the nation, California is continuing to see its metrics trend downward.

At least for now.

Even as the state's numbers remain comparatively positive, officials are urging caution — saying California can ill afford to see its progress reverse so soon after emerging from its own horrific fall and winter surge.

Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the high number of cases elsewhere should be of particular concern because what happens elsewhere in the country will likely carry consequences for California.

And with much of the state further unlocking long-shuttered businesses and other activities, the stakes remain high — and the danger of increased transmission remains real.

California's trends
Over the last week, the state has reported an average of 2,766 new coronavirus cases per day, a 35% decrease from two weeks ago, data compiled by The Times show.

Statewide, 2,586 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized Monday; 635 were in intensive care. Both figures have returned to levels not seen since the beginning of California’s last surge.

The number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths also continues to decline but is not yet down to pre-surge levels. An average of 183 Californians died from the disease every day during the last week, and the state’s total death toll has surpassed 57,200.

As of Tuesday, California’s seven-day case rate per 100,000 people was among the lowest in the nation, at 46.8, according to the CDC. The only states with better rates were Arizona, 46.1, Oregon, 45.5, and Hawaii, 37.

Case rates over the same period were 319.2 in New Jersey, 311.1 in New York City, 222.1 in the rest of New York state, 162.8 in Pennsylvania, 143.9 in Florida, and 91.6 in Texas.

The most recent nationwide case rate was 116.1.

But just because California is measuring up well doesn't mean it's time to celebrate, Ferrer warned.

"This past year indicates that often the East Coast experiences increases in cases before the West Coast and that, typically, L.A. County is a few weeks behind New York," she told the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. "While conditions have definitely changed, particularly as we've vaccinated millions of individuals over the past three months, we do not yet have enough vaccine protection across the county to prevent more transmission if we're not extraordinarily careful in these next few weeks."

National warnings
Officials across California and the nation stress that residents must maintain their vigilance to stave off another wave. That’s especially true as more areas lift pandemic-related restrictions — a delicate process that experts warn can easily go awry.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that “the continued relaxation of prevention measures while cases are still high and while concerning variants are spreading rapidly throughout the United States is a serious threat to the progress we have made as a nation.”

“Believe me, I get it,” she said during a briefing. “We all want to return to our everyday activities and spend time with our family, friends and loved ones, but we must find the fortitude to hang in there for just a little bit longer. We are at a critical point in this pandemic, a fork in the road where we as a country must decide which path we are going to take. We must act now. And I am worried that, if we don’t take the right actions now, we will have another avoidable surge — just as we are seeing in Europe right now and just as we are so aggressively scaling up vaccination.”

Ferrer agreed.

“Everyone is exhausted by this pandemic and the restrictions, but we don’t want to do anything that makes it easy for our community transmission rates to go back up,” she said. “Not only is that a disaster all around, because then we just have more community transmission, and that translates to more outbreaks in places newly reopened, like schools, but it’s also a disaster because it allows a variant many more opportunities to become dominant.”

The vaccine race
In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has morphed into a race against time, with health officials pushing to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

California expects to receive roughly 1.8 million doses this week — up slightly from last week’s allotment, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

But weekly shipments of that size aren’t enough to keep up with the state’s vaccination pace.
Over the last seven days, providers statewide have administered an average of 378,115 doses per day, Times data show.

Overall, more than 15.1 million doses of vaccine — about 78% of the supply that has been delivered to local public health departments and medical providers — have been administered statewide, according to the California Department of Public Health.

And many officials are striking an optimistic tone that vaccine distribution may be significantly widened in the near future.

Earlier this month, President Biden said restrictions on who could make a COVID-19 vaccine appointment would be lifted nationwide by May 1, when supply is expected to be sufficient to meet demand.

And Newsom said Friday that state officials anticipated being able to make the shots available to everyone “within 5½ weeks ... because supply will exponentially increase.”

A key factor in widely expanding access will be the availability of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — which, unlike the others manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, requires only a single shot.

Shipments of that vaccine have been stymied by production issues, however. L.A. County, for instance, anticipates getting only about 6,000 Johnson & Johnson doses this week.

While officials are confident that a wider supply stream is on the horizon, they said the next few weeks will be critical in finally beating back COVID-19.

During the coming spring holiday season, "we will all need to avoid large gatherings, crowds and non-essential travel," Ferrer said. "These actions have had disastrous consequences for our community in the past. Our shared goal is to keep each other alive to allow everyone to get vaccinated and have an extra layer of protection."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Quote:Florida COVID numbers face new scrutiny


Alexander Nazaryan
·National Correspondent
Tue, March 30, 2021, 5:00 AM·8 min read



WASHINGTON — New research published earlier this month in the American Journal of Public Health argues that Florida is undercounting the number of people who died from COVID-19 by thousands of cases, casting new doubt on claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis navigated the coronavirus pandemic successfully.

Conservatives have celebrated DeSantis for his handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 30,000 residents of the state. Critics of the combative governor, meanwhile, say that many of those deaths would have been prevented if he had listened more diligently to health experts. DeSantis resisted lockdowns, downplayed masks and has made it increasingly difficult for localities to institute public health measures of their own.
And the state could be on the cusp of a new coronavirus surge.

People at the beach in Miami Beach, Fla., in June 2020. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
The impact of the pandemic in Florida “is significantly greater than the official COVID-19 data suggest,” the researchers wrote. They came to that conclusion by comparing the number of estimated deaths for a six-month period in 2020, from March to September, to the actual number of deaths that occurred, a figure known as “excess deaths” because they exceed the estimate.

There were 400,000 excess deaths across the United States in 2020, a spike closely correlated to the coronavirus pandemic.

The lack of testing early in the pandemic may also have undercounted COVID-19 deaths, explains Daniel Weinberger, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health who has also studied the coronavirus and excess deaths.

The issue was further complicated because each state has its own death-counting methodology. “Some states classify a death as due to COVID if a positive molecular test was obtained, while other states allow the death to be classified as due to COVID if there is a suspicion that it was caused by COVID (even without a molecular test),” Weinberger wrote in an email to Yahoo News.

Polymerase chain reaction tests — another name for the molecular tests Weinberger referenced — are the most reliable way to tell if a person, dead or living, has been infected with the coronavirus.

In the case of Florida, the researchers say, 4,924 excess deaths should have been counted as resulting from COVID-19 but for the most part were ruled as having been caused by something else, thus lowering Florida’s coronavirus fatality count. That’s possible because people who die from COVID-19 often have comorbidities, such as diabetes and asthma. That leaves some discretion for medical examiners, who have sometimes struggled with conflicting science and been subject to political pressures during the pandemic.

In Florida, the state’s 25 district medical examiners are directly appointed by the governor. Last spring, the DeSantis administration was accused of trying to keep those medical examiners from releasing complete coronavirus data. (In August, the state said coronavirus deaths no longer required certification from a medical examiner.)

Crowds defiantly party in the street an hour past curfew in Miami Beach, Fla., on March 21. (Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald via AP)
“I am sure that COVID-19 is responsible for most of these excess deaths,” says Moosa Tatar, a public health economist at the University of Utah who led the research team looking at Florida’s excess deaths. He said he chose to focus on Florida because of how quickly the governor lifted restrictions there. That move was widely criticized as reckless, though some believe that he has been vindicated by the fact that states where lockdowns persisted in the spring and fall did not necessarily have better outcomes than Florida.

The DeSantis administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Florida already has the fourth-highest total number of deaths in the country from COVID-19, but it is also the country’s second most populous state. It has the second-oldest population in the United States, a significant factor in a pandemic that tends to affect the elderly more severely than young people.

The debate over the state’s pandemic response is, to a large degree, a proxy for the broader debate over how effective restrictions have been in stopping the disease.

Donald Trump, who railed against restrictions even as his own government implemented them, is now a resident of Florida; DeSantis is a political disciple of Trump with presidential ambitions of his own. He recently lashed out at President Biden as a “lockdowner.” The president has not tried to “lock down” Florida, but his administration has expressed concern in recent days about spring break crowds partying without masks, which appears to be driving a spate of new infections in the state.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a press conference on March 22 in Melbourne, Fla. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Tatar’s findings have not been universally accepted. Lauren Rossen, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has analyzed excess deaths, told Yahoo News that she saw nothing exceptionally suspicious in the state’s excess death numbers.

“Florida doesn’t stand out to me,” she said.

Other critics of Tatar’s findings described Florida as neither a glowing success nor an unmitigated disaster but rather a state that has handled the pandemic with some successes and some failures, with the excess death data reflecting that mixed record.

Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida, told Yahoo News that it was wrong to assume that every excess death during the period in question should be attributed directly to those who contracted the coronavirus, especially since people who were never infected may still have been fearful of seeking care for other conditions while the pandemic surged and hospitals filled with COVID-19 patients.

“You could’ve never gotten the coronavirus, delayed needed health care, and died from diabetes-related complications. That’s still indirectly tied to the pandemic,” Salemi told Yahoo News, describing Florida’s statistics regarding all-cause excess deaths and the coronavirus as “kind of middle-of-the-pack.”

Excess deaths were at 21 percent nationwide for 2020, according to the CDC; Florida saw a 15.5 percent rate of excess deaths for the period that Tatar studied. California’s excess death rate was also 15 percent, despite that state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, having enacted much more stringent restrictions than did DeSantis in Florida.

Salemi runs a Florida-focused coronavirus dashboard and frequently talks to state epidemiologists. “I don’t think there’s anything egregious going on with the data,” he told Yahoo News. “I would know. I am just constantly in these data.”

Weinberger, the Yale epidemiologist, also said that his analysis indicated that Florida’s “gap” between COVID-19 and excess deaths was about average.

The question isn’t whether deaths occurred, but how states counted them. Research conducted by Andrew Stokes of Boston University has shown that in pro-Trump sections of the country where elected officials tended to take the pandemic less seriously, excess deaths were less likely to be attributed to the coronavirus.

Stokes told Yahoo News that what was true for the U.S. was also true for Florida, with heavily Democratic counties like Miami-Dade, Osceola and Hillsborough tending to report all or nearly all excess deaths as COVID-19 deaths. By contrast, most of the counties where COVID-19 death underreporting was especially high — Franklin, Wakulla, Taylor and Sumter — are Republican strongholds.

“There’s a lot of regional variation within Florida,” Stokes said in an interview, describing what he said were “patterns of underreporting.” That contradicts what Rossen, the CDC statistician, told Yahoo News.

Those underlying patterns could explain why the state’s average numbers elicit such strikingly different reactions.
While the state as a whole looks, as Salemi said, average, more finely grained data suggests discrepancies at play.

In other words, it appears that diligent coronavirus reporting in Democratic sections of the state may have been compensated for by underreporting from Republican regions.

The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department transports bodies and performs autopsies. It is also responsible for signing off on death certificates for coronavirus victims. (John VanBeekum/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

DeSantis has personally taken pains to favorably contrast himself to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is accused of concealing the number of deaths in nursing homes. But he has also attracted criticism of his own by feuding with a data scientist who was fired after accusing him of manipulating data. Political opponents have branded him “DeathSantis” for what they have charged has been a reckless inattention to a state full of elderly and otherwise vulnerable people.

The political debate over how governors including Cuomo and DeSantis have handled the coronavirus may reflect nothing more than the fact that every state, whether red or blue, suddenly found itself dealing with a pathogen that challenged American society at every level.

And the uncertainty involved in confronting the new disease was compounded by changing guidance from Washington on how to handle the pandemic. Public health experts believe that clearer and more decisive leadership by the Trump administration could have prevented hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.

“Overall, COVID-19 was the third most common cause of death in the U.S. during 2020,” says Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Justin Lessler. The pandemic was topped only by heart disease and cancer. “Given it did not exist at the beginning of the year, this should be troubling to everyone.”

Quote:[color=var(--tc,#222)]No amount of rock music can cover it up. DeSantis dodged the unemployment question, again | Editorial[/color]

[color=var(--tc,#707070)]BY THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL BOARD
[color=var(--tc,#707070)]MARCH 29, 2021 06:51 PM,[/color] 
[color=var(--tc,#707070)]UPDATED MARCH 29, 2021 08:41 PM[/color]
[/color]

• [color=var(--tc,#222)][/url][/color]
• [color=var(--tc,#222)][url=https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article250292610.html][/color]
  
  
  

[color=var(--tc,#707070)]Gov. Ron DeSantis , speaking at a coronavirus vaccination site in Bradenton on Feb. 17, had a live band play for an audience of maskless Republicans before his Monday press conference. CHRIS O'MEARA AP[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Monday news conference had all the elements of a Florida spectacle: a live rock band playing “With a Little Help from My Friends” (the dive bar cover of Joe Cocker’s version), a maskless group of people and a grouchy governor who doesn’t like tough questions intruding on his chosen narrative.[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]The event at the Capitol in Tallahassee was supposed to showcase DeSantis’ signing of a bill to protect businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits. The band was there, DeSantis said, to remind us of what we’re missing when businesses are afraid of the liability of hosting such events. What better way to demonstrate that than by gathering a handful of Republicans without masks and broadcasting it on social media? (Though most of them were lawmakers, who have to get tested periodically, it sends the wrong message).[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]But it was all just a sideshow, a distraction. COVID numbers are rising again in the nation’s third most populous state. Mentioning that would’ve struck a sour note indeed.[/color]

[color=var(--tc,#222)]And so during the press conference, when Herald Tallahassee Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas asked the governor why he didn’t waive unemployment benefit requirements, as states like Texas did, during the pandemic, the governor dodged the question. That inaction resulted in pregnant women, people with COVID and people caring for children at home to be denied benefits, according to a story by the Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau that showed that the state’s strict anti-fraud measures prevented legitimate applicants from receiving payments.[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]“I don’t trust the premise of the question... I would like to see some validity to what they’re saying before I indulge the premise, because I don’t think that the premise is something I’m going to accept at face value,” DeSantis answered.[/color]

[color=var(--tc,#222)]Is he challenging the premise that he didn’t waive the requirements or that deserving people were denied benefits? We don’t know because he ordered the press corps to move on to the next question.[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]Klas’ question was based on information from DeSantis’ own administration, including applicant rejection letters, training documents, interviews with call-center employees and lawmakers.[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]Pregnant women being denied benefits — and reporters doing their job — don’t mesh well with DeSantis’ self-congratulatory, “we-beat-COVID” tour of the past few weeks. When confronted with inconvenient information, DeSantis’ MO has been to question its accuracy or go on the attack. [/color]
[color=var(--tc,#222)]A few weeks ago, he threatened to take vaccines away from communities that have concerns about his vaccination pop-ups, some of which benefited rich, white communities.[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]But DeSantis’ temper tantrums matter less to us than getting an honest answer from the governor. He might have had legitimate reasons not to waive those requirements. Or he knows something the Herald’s reporting has yet to unveil.[/color]


[color=var(--tc,#222)]Whatever that is, just answer the question, governor. It’s your job.[/color]

(03-23-2021, 03:58 PM)mallorian69 Wrote: They already did that and now we have a senile pedophile in the white house.

Quote:Florida governor clashes with "60 Minutes" over COVID vaccine rollout
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[url=https://www.axios.com/authors/newsdesk/]
Axios






A screenshot from "60 Minutes" of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Photo: CBS

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ® announced a COVID-19 vaccine distribution partnership with Publix grocery stores weeks after the company gave $100,000 to his PAC, CBS' "60 Minutes" reported Sunday, citing campaign finance records. DeSantis and Publix deny any wrongdoing.

Why it matters: DeSantis has been criticized for directing vaccines toward wealthy communities, with some who benefitted from the vaccine pop-ups also donating to the governor's political action committee, per Axios' Tampa Bay reporter Ben Montgomery.

• State Democratic leaders have asked the Department of Justice to investigate the allegations.
  

Driving the news: The "60 Minutes" program highlighted reports of "vaccine favoritism," with Florida's poorer communities being left behind in the rollout, noting there's no Publix in Belle Glade in Palm Beach County.

• State Democratic Rep. Omari Hardy told the show "you have lots of folks who don't have cars" in the community and that it's a round trip of over two hours with 34 stops to the nearest Publix 25 miles away.
• "Before, I could call the public health director. She would answer my calls. But now if I want to get my constituents information about how to get this vaccine I have to call a lobbyist from Publix? That makes no sense," Hardy added. "They're not accountable to the public." 
  

Of note: "60 Minutes" aired footage of CBS' Sharyn Alfonsi confronting DeSantis at a press conference south of Orlando last month over the donation report, which DeSantis called "wrong."

• Alfonsi narrated that Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said DeSantis "never met with her about the Publix deal."
• It cut back to her exchange with DeSantis, with Alfonsi saying: "The criticism here is that is pay for play, governor."
• DeSantis called the claim "a fake narrative," adding that he met with local officials to discuss options.
  

Quote:"We can do more drive-thru sites, we can give more to hospitals. We can do the Publix. And they said, 'We think that would be the easiest thing for our residents."

— DeSantis
For the record: The donation is the latest in controversial political spending by associates and beneficiaries of Publix.

• Heiress Julie Jenkins Fancelli donated about $300,000 to fund the rally that preceded the U.S. Capitol riot, Axios Tampa Bay's Montgomery and Selene San Felice report.
• The popular grocery chain employs 225,000 people and did $38.1 billion in retail sales in 2019, per Montgomery and San Felice, the reporters note.
  

What they're saying: Publix said in a statement to CBS, "The irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributions" made to DeSantis and "our willingness to join other pharmacies" supporting Florida's vaccine rollout is "absolutely false and offensive."

• "We are proud of our pharmacy associates for administering more than 1.5 million doses of vaccine to date and for joining other retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to do our part to help our communities emerge from the pandemic," the statement added.
• Representatives for DeSantis, Publix and CBS did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
  

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify that the nearest Publix to Belle Glade is 25 miles away.