COVID-19 case rates released by the Florida Department of Health last week showed a 309 percent increase in cases on the Space Coast from the week prior. The new case positivity rate also increased from 8.1% to 23.8%, according to FDOH data. The state doesn’t provide data on the vaccine status of those cases.
COVID-19 cases in the United States increased 104 percent from the week before, with 2,833,203 cases reported. With 6.45 percent of the country’s population, Florida had 10.67 percent of the country’s cases in the last week, reports The Florida Times-Union.
In Florida, local and state officials warned that residents were waiting hours in sometimes miles-long lines just to get a test, reports The Guardian. Some accused the state health department and the governor, Ron DeSantis, of being missing in action.
“It’s every man/woman for themselves because leadership is MIA,” tweeted state senator Shevrin Jones. Florida Senator Marco Rubio just flat-out denied there was a surge of coronavirus cases going on.
Though the omicron variant is highly contagious, health experts worldwide have found that symptoms aren’t as deadly as those from the COVID-19 delta variant and that by vaccinating and getting boosted individuals can protect themselves against severe illness and hospitalization.
Weekly case counts rose in 67 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week’s pace were in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Orange counties.
Two weeks ago, there were 1,200 adults hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida. As of December 30, the state had more than 4,433 adults hospitalized with COVID-19. And needless to say, many of the hospitalized are unvaccinated.
While Floridians are suffering through this latest virus surge, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is blaming the Biden administration for COVID-19 woes in his state while accusing other state leaders of allowing “hysteria” to reign as they encourage mitigation measures against the virus that he claimes had little basis in sound science.
