Before the regular school season started, even I knew it was a huge risk to send our children and our teachers back into classrooms that could turn into COVID super-spreader locations. All it takes is five to fourteen days to see the results. Well, it's five days after school opened across Florida, and look what's happening in my backyard (via WFLA):
The Hillsborough County School Board will hold an Emergency School Board Meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 18, from 1-3:30 p.m. due to rising COVID-19 cases across the county.
As of 7 a.m., Monday, 5,599 students and 316 employees in Hillsborough County Public Schools are in isolation or quarantine. Isolation refers to individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 while quarantine refers to those who have had close contact with a positive case...
Hillsborough County is the seventh-largest student population in the state. Let's check in with some of the others. Here's Jacksonville/Duval County (via News4Jax):
Over the first four days of the 2021-2022 school year in Duval County, the number of positive COVID-19 cases listed on the district’s online tracking dashboard grew at a nearly exponential rate.
After only two cases were listed on Tuesday, one student and one employee, the following days saw six students, 18 students and 41 students added, respectively...
While it hasn’t been used so far this year, the district also plans to use a similar process to decide if and when an outbreak grows to the point that a classroom, a school, or the entire district has to move to virtual learning.
Generally in Duval County, if 20% of a class or school has been exposed, that switch will happen...
If you look at the chart (I can't link it) in that report for Duval County schools, each day saw a huge jump in cases, and that was just in three days. Has it been updated yet for this Monday...?
The Sun-Sentinel paper in South Florida reports (behind paywall) that 1,000 students are quarantined in Palm Beach County by now. That number is only going to go up.
And while it's not school related, Polk County in the middle of the state in a major population hub (the I-4 corridor) is the hottest hotspot in the hottest COVID state (via Sarah Megan-Walsh at the Lakeland Ledger):
In Polk, there were 6,521 new COVID infections reported from Aug. 6 to 12, according to the Florida Department of Health's latest report issued Friday. That's about 700 more than last week's record 5,703 cases. It brings the county's total to 93,349 infected since the pandemic began in March 2020.
The rapid spike in new cases locally appears to be leveling off slightly. Polk's week-over-week increase in cases was up about 14%, where in prior weeks the number of weekly infections nearly doubled in mid-July.
Statewide, Florida reported 151,415 new COVID cases last week — also setting a record, according to the state health department. On Wednesday, the state reported an all-time high of 24,869 people newly infected with the coronavirus in a single day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID Data Tracker...
And in the midst of all this, what is Governor DeSantis doing?
He dare not speak out to encourage masks in public again, he dare not encourage people to get vaccinated when they can, because that would enrage the trumpian GOP base.
No, he's out there promoting an expensive drug Regeneron to help those in the ICU wards recover faster... which isn't a smart alternative to, you know, getting a super-cheap vaccine and avoid getting super-sick in the first place.
This is where we are as the COVID-19 pandemic speeds along: Utterly screwed by our Republican leadership that would rather get us all sick before doing a damn thing to help us.
1 comment:
Regeneron's REGEN-COV:
https://www.regeneron.com/covid19
"Limitations of Authorized Use (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis)
Post-exposure prophylaxis with REGEN-COV is not a substitute for vaccination against COVID-19
REGEN-COV is not authorized for pre-exposure prophylaxis for prevention of COVID-19"
"under the Emergency Use Authorization parameters issued by the FDA."
"Patients with commercial insurance may be subject to a co-pay/co-insurance cost for the drug’s administration. Currently, there is no cost for the drug or its administration for patients with Medicare or Medicaid insurance."
Well ... it isn't FDA approved. It isn't a substitute for vaccination. It isn't to be used as a prophylactic. You might have to pay for it if your not very poor or very old.
It isn't cheap and the antibodies don't last long so you may have to pay again after you beat COVID the first time. Did anyone mention that the alternative, the vaccine, is far more widely tested, protects longer and (kicker), it's free.
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