RIGHTWING FAILURE Third World Florida Hospitals Are Overrun As State Fights One Of The Worst Covid Outbreaks In The U.S.

Newman wrote

> 
> Florida Hospitals Are Overrun As State Fights One Of The Worst Covid 
> Outbreaks In The U.S.
> 
> 
> Hospitals across Florida are now being pushed to the limit as the state 
> fights one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the nation, fueled by the 
> delta variant.
> 
> The state accounts for almost 18% of new cases in the U.S., according to
> data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
> 
> Florida's surge in cases comes as GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to 
> resist calls to enforce mask mandates and other pandemic-related
> measures. 
> 
> Dr. David Wein, an emergency medicine physician at Tampa General
> Hospital in Florida, said the Covid-19 outbreak there is the most severe
> he and his colleagues have witnessed since the pandemic began.
> 
> In Hillsborough County, where Tampa General Hospital is located, the 
> number of new Covid cases has reached an average of about 1,200 per day,
> according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That's more than
> twice the national rate when adjusting for population.
>  
>  
> Covid patients are now occupying nearly 200 of Tampa General Hospital's 
> 1,041 beds as of Tuesday, according to data provided by the hospital, 
> which serves western Florida and the greater Tampa Bay region. Sixty-one
> patients are in the ICU. The surge in patients, most of them
> unvaccinated, is causing a strain on the hospital's 8,000-plus member
> staff, Wein said. 
> 
> "Everyone is working at full capacity and then some, and it feels like 
> we've been that way for a long time," Wein said Tuesday in a phone 
> interview. He added the hospital was beginning to run low on nurses.
> "It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now."
> 
>  
> 
> Hospitals across Florida are now being pushed to the limit with ICU beds
> filling up and providers struggling to find enough staff to care for 
> patients as the state fights one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in the 
> nation, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant.
> 
> Florida's surge in cases comes as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis continues
> to resist calls from the Biden administration and state advocacy groups
> to enforce mask mandates and other pandemic-related measures to help
> contain the massive outbreak. He signed an executive order and law in
> May that lifted all Covid restrictions across the state and permanently
> blocked local officials from enacting new ones starting July 1.
> 
> In late July, DeSantis issued a controversial executive order that
> blocked mask mandates in the state's schools, overruling two counties
> that required face coverings for their students and defying the Centers
> for Disease Control and Prevention's masking recommendations. DeSantis'
> office didn't immediately have a comment for this article and the
> Florida Department of Health didn't immediately respond to requests for
> comment. 
> 
> Cases have continued to climb. Florida's latest Covid data, which is 
> released just once a week on Fridays, shows its seven-day average of new
> cases hit a new record last week of 19,250 per day, up from around 1,500
> in June and accounting for almost 18% of new cases in the U.S.,
> according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. On a per capita
> basis, Florida is second-highest in the nation in cases at 90 new
> infections per day per 100,000 people - behind Louisiana at 116 cases
> per 100,000 residents.
> 
> DeSantis has blamed the Biden administration's policies on immigration
> for the new wave of Covid infections.
> 
> DeSantis' policies have been "utterly irresponsible," said Lawrence 
> Gostin, director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center
> on National and Global Health Law. He said the policies threaten to slow
> the entire nation's progress in ending the pandemic, especially as
> schools reopen and employers begin to bring workers back to the office
> this fall. 
> 
> "With a highly contagious delta variant raging through the state, the 
> people have been largely abandoned by their state government," Gostin 
> said. "America is so close to getting back to normal. This could be a 
> major setback to our national Covid response."
> 
> Hospital beds are filling up in the meantime, with 86% of in-patient
> beds in use compared with 74% nationwide as of Wednesday, according to
> data compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services. Across the
> U.S., roughly 10% of all hospital beds are being used to treat Covid
> patients, while nearly 28% of the beds in Florida are occupied by them -
> the highest of any state, the data shows.
> 
> Just over 90% of the state's ICU beds were in use as of Wednesday,
> almost half of them filled with Covid patients, according to HHS data.
> 
> Florida's death toll is on the rise as well at a seven-day average of 88
> daily Covid deaths, up 51% from last week but below the record average
> of more than 180 deaths per day in late January, according to Hopkins
> data. 
> 
> The federal government is now sending 200 ventilators, 100 breathing 
> devices and other related supplies to the state, according to NBC News,
> to help Florida health officials respond to the record number of 
> hospitalizations. DeSantis said he was unaware of the federal
> allocation, but local and state health officials had requested equipment
> from the national stockpile, according to NBC News.

RAND PAUL SAYS HE'S A DOCTOR SO WHY DOESN'T HE GO THERE AND SAVE THEM?