Waiting Room

Posted on by Thor

Waiting rooms have become menacing places since the Covid-19 Pandemic began. It is estimated that there are 883.7 million ambulatory care visits a year in the U.S., with 54.5% of these visits going to primary care physicians. In the waiting room, there is ample time for the mingling of patients who have an acute infectious disease and those who do not. Studies have shown that airborne infections pose a particular threat to susceptible individuals whenever they are placed together with an infected individual in confined spaces like a healthcare facility waiting area.

According to the CDC, Covid-19 is spread mainly between people who are in close contact with one another (within about six feet) through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. A person can contract COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads. These patterns of transmission raise the concern that healthcare facility waiting areas are environments in which there is risk of transmission of Covid-19 to high-risk uninfected patients.

It is also recommended that, where possible, the waiting room chairs are arranged in a manner that is conducive to patients maintaining at least six feet of distance from other patients. There have been some recommendations regarding the use of HEPA filters. Unfortunately, since the Covid-19 virus is very small (0.1 of a micron), it is likely not filtered by most commercially available HEPA filters, which are only able to filter particles as small as 0.3 microns.

Five precautions include,

  • Make hand sanitizer accessible in high-traffic areas
  • Offer an antiviral face mask to patients and healthcare workers
  • Use germ-killing wipes on high-contact surfaces
  • Review containment plans and keep patients with flu-like symptoms away from others
  • Follow hand hygiene compliance standards.

Anyone in Orange County, including within the city limits of Orlando, will be required to wear a face mask beginning this Saturday while out in public, under a new mandate by Mayor Jerry Demings. Under his order, “every person working, living, visiting or doing business in Orange County,” will be required to wear face coverings consistent with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, while in any public space.

On my half hour drive to Crealde School of Art today on the second day of the mandate I saw 25 to 50 people and none had a mask. My students thankfully did have masks.
The latest numbers from the Florida Department of Health show that there have been 97,291 cases of COVID-19 statewide, resulting in 3,161 deaths. That is an increase of 3,494 cases since Saturday morning. There were also another 17 deaths reported.

Dueling Dashboards

Posted on by Thor

Florida now has Dueling Dashboards. Rebekah Jones was the former manager of Data and Surveillance for the Florida Department of Health Covid-19 Dashboard. She was removed from the state’s dashboard project after she questioned other officials’ commitment to accessibility and transparency. In April, she was working on the results that would specify which countries in Florida could open. Superiors told her they did not like the results. A report had been written on the criteria needed for a county to re-open. Many rural counties did not meet the standards needed to re-open. Some more populated counties at the time did meet the criteria. She was told, “We can’t tell Jackson and Franklin Counties that they can’t re-open but Broward and Maimi-Dade can.” They wanted to exempt counties with populations of less than 75,000 allowing them to re-open regardless of their status. She was asked to delete data and hide information making the information not publicly inaccessible. Basically they wanted justify the Governor’s desire to re-open regardless of the facts.

The reputation of the dashboard had been built on it’s transparency. The data was eventually put back, but now it is hard to know how reliable that data is. They have changed how the date is calculated and how it is recorded. Data continues to go missing since the dashboard keeps crashing.

The way percent positive cases were calculated was re-worked. As she put it, Lets say there are 100 apples and 50 are rotten. 50% of the apples are rotten. Now lets say 30 were rotten yesterday, 10 were rotten 2 days before and 5 are almost completely rotten but not quite, the rest of the non-rotten apples are diced into hundreds of pieces. No matter how you slice it 50% of the apples are rotten. The scenario is made more convoluted than it has to be.

Percent of positivity was one of the bench marks each county needed to meet to re-open. Positivity had to be below 10% and decreasing for two weeks. The way it was calculated was to divide the number of positive tests by the number of tests given. It was changed to the number of new cases per day divided by the number of negative tests per day. If someone gets tested multiple times it throws off the results. She refused to mislead the public during a health crisis and was fired.

Since leaving Rebekah decided to create her own Covid-19 Florida dashboard and she accomplished that in 3 days. Jones’s website floridacovidaction.com is paid for entirely by donations. Her dashboard reported about 77o2 more positive cases than the Florida Department of Health dashboard on March 1, 2020, because she bases her findings on science and data.

The new dashboard also shows report cards on where each county stands on reopening. Based on the facts she presents only one county is actually ready to open every other county included Orange County failed.

After being fired, Gov. Ron DuhSantis attacked Rebekah’s character but he can have no say on her new dashboard since the information is publicly accessible. He accused her of not being a scientist, and not having access to the date. Her new Dashboard clearly shows that she was the architect of the FDH dashboard and I for one will be consulting her new dashboard often since I tend to trust her results more that the FDH site.  She was able to quickly assemble the new and improved Covid-19 Dashboard since she knows exactly how to find and access the data. The dashboard she had created previously was praised by Deborah Burks a member of the White House Task Force and her credibility remains unquestioned.

Liberty County up tin the Florida panhandle is the only county that meets all the criteria of the Department of Health to re-open. Decrease in ER Visits for COVID-like illness: YES
Decrease in ER Visits for influenza-like illness: YES
Decrease in new cases by date: YES 

Orange County where I live, has not met the criteria to Re-open.

According to Department of Health, Orange County does NOT meet the criteria for the next phase of reopening.
Decrease in ER Visits for COVID-like illness: NO
Decrease in ER Visits for influenza-like illness: NO
Decrease in new cases by date: NO 

Social distancing grade for Orange County is:
F
Distance Grade: D
Encounters Grade: F
Visitation Grade:  F

Florida reported another 2,610 cases of COVID-19 on the morning  of Wednesday June 17, 2020, and saw its Covid-19 death toll rise to over 3,000. Those numbers come one day after the state set a record with 2,783 new cases. The rush to re-open has consequences. Wear masks, socially distance and stay home if you can. If 80% of people wore masks this virus could stop dead in its tracks.

Hydroxidistraction

Posted on by admin

President Donald Trump likes to grab headlines with distracting insane baubles for the media to run with. His latest rant is that he has been taking Hydroxychloroquine for the past week. I personally don’t think he has been taking the unapproved drug as a prophylactic against Covid-19. He doesn’t have the balls. He knows the dangerous side effects, and that there is no evidence to support the idea that it helps in any way against the virus. The FDA warned that the drug can cause serious side effects and even death. I will need to see a video of him actually taking the drug and then having a health professional check under his tongue like they do in psychiatric hospitals before I believe he is taking the drug.  This is a lie intended to make him appear macho for his base. They already believe his Hydroxi claims. Science be damned. It is also a distraction to keep reporters from asking about why there is not adequate testing and tracking as the country prepares to open.t of the pandemic Trump has decided to cut funding the the World Health Organization. This is like closing the fire department as your house burns.

Rick Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint after being removed from his position as head of the agency in charge of pandemic response, testified for just under four hours Thursday May 14, 2020 before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s health subcommittee. Bright said.  “The Trump administration rushed out recommendations about the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus.” Bright’s whistleblower complaint alleged he was removed from his post in retaliation for opposing the broad use of hydroxychloroquine.

More important for us in Central Florida is the fact that Rebekah Jones the architect of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard was fired on May 5, 2020 for failing to manipulate covid-19 data which might possibly contradict the states narrative that it is safe to open up the economy. What we need moving forward is not some magic pill but cold hard facts. Independent researchers are worried that this is government censorship. Since Rebekah was fired, the site has “crashed” and gone offline and data has gone missing without explanation while access to the underlying data sheets has become increasingly difficult. The site was created by a team of Florida Department of Health data scientists and public health officers headed by Rebekah Jones.

She single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the Covid-19 situation was in real time.

“I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I’ll probably never get paid for,” she wrote in an email, confirming that she had not just been reassigned on May 5, but fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the Florida Department of Health.  

In her farewell letter she wrote, “I understand, appreciate, and even share your concern about all the dramatic changes that have occurred and those that are yet to come. As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.” She signed off, “It was great working with you guys. Good luck, and stay safe.” Governor Ron DeSantis implied that Rebekah just needed a vacation and then he abruptly walked out of the press conference to avoid further questioning by reporters.

Restricting the data, is the equivalent of cutting off hurricane forecasts as a storm approaches. When requesting the previously available underlying data, Department of Health officials said that because the data is “provisional” no such requests would be considered until May 2021. Racial and ethnic data and cause of death have been consistently excluded from Florida’s line listing of cases. Such data was reported by medical examiners, but that data table has also been censored by the Department of Health making it virtually useless. 

Asal M. Johnson, an assistant Professor of Public Health at Stetson University, has also been frustrated with decreasing data access.  “They are pretending that public health is what has damaged (the) economy. They are getting it wrong; the economy is damaged because we ignored evidence to protect public health,” she wrote, adding  “They think they can save their own political interest by restricting information.”

Even children learn that by closing your eyes, the problem does not go away. The virus does not care if the numbers are hidden.

83 Seats

Posted on by Thor

83 people died in Florida on Tuesday April 28, 2020, the highest total so far for a single day. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided it was the best day to fly to Washington D.C. to visit Donald Trump and tell him what a great job he has done to keep the state safe. I started to wonder what that flight to DC would have been like. How many seats would be on that plane? Then I realized that 83 people could have flown on that flight had they been alive. People with husbands, wives, children and friends. People DeSantis seems to feel are acceptable collateral damage as he makes plans to reopen Florida to help Trumps re-election plans.

The Florida Department of Health on Tuesday reported
a total of 1,171 deaths and nearly 33,000 confirmed cases, although the
true number of infections in the state is believed to be significantly
higher. Meanwhile, Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity has
struggled to process nearly 2 million unemployment claims in a state
where the economy relies heavily on tourism and hospitality.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article242339311.html#storylink=cpy

Trump has not been back to his Mara Lago estate in Florida since the beginning of March and he fired his whole staff. His popularity in Florida has been slipping away to his opponent Joe Biden. I can’t imagine what he might have said to make his numbers drop.  Florida has been the recipient of critical personal protective equipment. Trump is pushing states to reopen businesses “as quickly as possible.” DeSantis is falling lock step in line. The planned meeting was mired in confusion after the White House
abruptly announced the two men would hold a formal press conference,
then abruptly announced they would not.

The Governor said he would be reviewing a document issued by his re-opening task force. Phase one of the DeSantis plan to re-open Florida will begin Monday May 4, 2020. The plan will allow limited reopening of stores and restaurants everywhere except
the hardest-hit counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach
counties. Capacity for retail stores and dine-in restaurants will be limited to 25
percent, more conservative than the 50-percent threshold in neighboring
Georgia, which began reopening last week. He stressed the importance of social distancing and continued
testing in the first phase, but sought to convey a sense that the state
was committed to moving forward. Then he mangled FDR, saying, “The only thing we have to fear is letting fear overwhelm our sense of purpose and determination,”

Florida should test potentially triple the number of people now
being tested every day to re-open safely. But DeSantis said Tuesday that Florida’s testing
capacity exceeds current demand. However, without testing, you have no idea how many are infected. Like Trump he loves to deny reality. “We have challenges. This is not an easy situation,” DeSantis said. “But
I have less than 500 people in a state of 22 million on ventilators as
of last night. And I have 6,500 ventilators sitting unused in the state
of Florida.” DeSantis’ month-long stay-at-home order expires on Thursday April 30, 2020.

During this pandemic airlines are still packing flights full with no social distancing measures in place. It is business as usual. After seeing a viral video about the viral flight crowding, American Airlines announced it will start distributing face masks, sanitizing wipes and gel to passengers in May. Starting May 4, 2020 Jet Blue Airline will require passengers to wear face masks saying, “This is the new flying etiquette.” Air Asia has come up with new flight attendant uniforms that consist of long sleeves, a face mask and hood.

It turns out that none of this should matter to Ron DeSantis, because he flies a 15.5 million dollar business jet. This is good for him since he doesn’t know how to put on a face mask. The airplane model is a Cessna Citation Latitude from Textron Aviation Inc.
The company advertises it as a jet with “elegant and lean design,” an
electronic door, touch-screen avionics and a spacious 6-foot standing
cabin.  The plane is being funded by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Which is of course funded by you.

To date there have been 1,171deaths due to Covid-19 in Florida.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article242339311.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article242339311.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article242339311.html#storylink=cpy

Leu Gardens Crowds: Business as Usual

Posted on by Thor

In 2017, Hurricane Irma blew through Central Florida blowing down a tree that damaged the roof of this historic Leu Garden Museum. The upper floors were water damaged. The historic museum has been closed for the past three years for restoration and repairs. At this time, there is no reopen date. The gardens however are open for business as usual.

While restaurants, bars, beaches, and Florida State Parks have been shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the City of Orlando has for some reason left Harry P. Leu Gardens open. The city said it will close all city-owned and operated
playgrounds and the swan boats at Lake Eola Park at 5 p.m. Monday 3/23/2020 until
further notice, but Leu Gardens continues to draw big crowds. Last weekend 400 to 500 people crushed into the gardens each day to escape cabin fever. The gardens have replaced Orlando’s sports stadiums for people to crowd together.

Leu Gardens volunteers and staff are working hard to wipe down the surfaces in the gift shop and entry hall but it is hard to keep up. It seems extreme to expect Garden staff to risk their lives in the face of a pandemic for the City of Orlando. Things might not be so bad if people were practicing social distancing, but they are not. As one expert said, “If it were possible to wave a magic wand and make all Americans
freeze in place for 14 days while sitting six feet apart,
epidemiologists say, the whole epidemic would sputter to a halt.” It is human nature to want to hug and shake hands to greet friends, or to hold each other tight when grieving a loss.

“Our outdoor facilities, such as our city parks, Leu Gardens and
Dubsdread Golf Course are open to the public, but residents must follow
necessary social distancing measures while there,” said Karyn Barber, a
city spokeswoman. “We encourage residents to use these facilities
responsibly to get fresh air and exercise, which are important for
physical and mental health always, but especially during this uncertain
time.” I am left wondering, who enforces responsible social distancing? Does this responsibility fall on Leu Gardens staff?

Florida State Governor Ron DeSantis wants to avoid a state-wide lock down leaving local governments to decide what should close and what should remain open. DeSantis still believes targeting the counties hardest hit by the Covid-19 for the most extreme measures is the preferable path.

The Florida Department of Health said Monday 3/23/2020 that there are now 1,171 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Florida with 14 deaths. I put 14 caskets in my sketch in their honor. Stay home, Stay safe.