More chickens coming home to roost, it's mostly sickening, maiming and killing his supporters now and Armageddon is coming for them real fast, as the delta variant spreads exponentially with no masks or safety measures. Unfortunately these psychos know that if the try to get in front of the giant snowball of bullshit they will get run over. Like the big lie, the antivaxx lie has inertia and once moving cannot be easily stopped. Trump is largely silent on vaccines, because he knows it will divide his base, they are split on the issue of personal survival at least.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State accounts for almost a quarter of new US infections as frustration grows at what experts say is governor’s mixed messaging
www.theguardian.com
Florida
Florida urged to ramp up vaccination effort amid ‘alarming’ Covid rise
In recent days Ron DeSantis has stepped up his personal animosity towards Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading infectious diseases expert. Photograph: Paul Hennessy/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
State accounts for almost a quarter of new US infections as frustration grows at what experts say is governor’s mixed messaging
The week began with Florida’s high-flying governor, Ron DeSantis, in Texas, bashing Joe Biden over immigration at the southern border. But with the highly contagious Delta variant pushing new cases of Covid-19 in his home state to their
highest level since January, DeSantis’s road trip was looking increasingly deaf in tone and timing.
By week’s end, Florida was accounting for
almost a quarter of new infections nationally, with the US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, warning of an “alarming” rise in deaths and hospitalizations.
“The challenge in Florida, and in far too many states, is [that] we still don’t have vaccination rates high enough, and in some pockets we have actually vaccination rates quite low,” Murthy said
in an interview with McClatchy newspapers.
“The consequence is that Covid is now spreading very quickly in those populations.”
Meanwhile, DeSantis, who recently launched a line of campaign merchandise
mocking masks and medical experts, was back home extolling the virtues of vaccinations.
“These vaccines are saving lives,” he said
at a news conference at which he noted that more than 95% of new infections in Florida were of those who had not received a shot. The state ranks 25th in the US, with 48.1% of those eligible fully vaccinated, 0.7% below the national average.
Edwin Michael, professor of epidemiology at the University of South
Florida, said: “The upsurge in cases and hospitalizations are due to fewer vaccinations, relaxation of social distancing measures, greater population mobility, plus the spread of more contagious variants.
“Until vaccination rates are ramped up to achieve herd immunity over this fall, people will still need to follow social distancing measures, such as wearing face coverings at the very least, to protect themselves and to reduce infection spread.”
Michael said Florida’s current vaccination rate must double to prevent the resurgent virus getting out of control.
Florida’s nation-leading surge, which according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has seen the seven-day average of cases more than quadruple from 1,839 on 1 July to 8,911 three weeks later, is filling up hospitals around the state.
Hospital systems in Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and central Florida are reporting a record
rise in admissions, and are limiting visitors and warning of looming staff shortages.
“We encourage everyone who’s eligible to get vaccinated as soon as possible. We want to avoid a repeat of last year and overwhelming our hospitals,” Carlos Migoya, chief executive of Miami’s Jackson Health, said.
DeSantis has
promised action: but only to convene a special session of the Florida legislature to block any move by the Biden administration to implement a mask mandate in the state’s public schools.
“If I were a parent in Florida, that would be greatly concerning to me,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters after DeSantis announced the proposal.
“Kids under 12 are not vaccinated, they’re not eligible yet. That puts kids at risk. It’s not aligned to public health standards.”
Physicians have welcomed DeSantis’s calls for more residents to get vaccinated, but their frustration has grown at what they see as mixed messaging, including his attacks on federal health officials – “
quote-unquote experts”, in the governor’s words – who have criticized those skeptical of the vaccines.
Already this year DeSantis has issued a
blanket pardon to anyone convicted of breaching local authority Covid mandates, and promised to use power handed to him by Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature to
invalidate local emergency measures.
...