Canaries in the Coal Mine

Posted on by Thor

With schools open, children have become the canaries in the coal mine. Pediatric hospitalizations are surging due to COVID-19, pushing hospitals and health care workers to the limits. In Florida, there are more people dying of COVID-19 than ever before. There are also more children being infected than ever before.

Florida is averaging 250 COVID-19 deaths a day. 14 refrigerated mobile morgues have been moved to central Florida hospitals to handle the overflow of bodies. August deaths match the peak fatalities from the last wave of infections in January 2021.

Florida added 151,749 coronavirus cases. Nearly one out of every three infections was suffered by those age 19 and under.

More and more, COVID-19 is afflicting the state’s youngest residents. Ages 19 and under account for 32 percent of infections, or 48,215 cases. More than 9,000 Florida children test positive for coronavirus in two weeks since schools reopened.

Young Floridians also continue to lead all age groups in positivity rates: Ages 12-19 have a 23 percent positivity rate, the highest in the state. Children ages 12 and under have the second highest rate at 19 percent — and those 11 and under cannot be vaccinated.

Florida hospitals had 215 pediatric cases with confirmed COVID-19 as of Friday, the highest number of child hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.

Five children under 16 have died from COVID-19 in Florida in the past four weeks.

Despite all this, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis is still trying to keep local school boards from issuing mask mandates. A judge ruled August 20, 2021 that Florida school districts may impose mask mandates. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper agreed with a group of parents who claimed in a lawsuit that DeathSantis’ order is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. Despite his court loss, the governor has begun withholding the salaries of school district administrators who have refused to comply with his unconstitutional executive order prohibiting them from enforcing mask mandates in schools.

Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), a district in Tampa, Florida, reopened to students for its first day of classes on August 10, 2021. The district had about 208,500 enrolled students as of the third day back at school.

The Orange County, Florida school district mandated masks after 400 COVID cases were reported in one day. The 60-day mask mandate requiring face coverings was institutes as the very contagious Delta variant ravages the state. The Orange County school board approved the mandate at its August 31, 2021 meeting, one day after the district confirmed more than 400 new cases of COVID-19 contracted by students and employees. The mandate goes into effect at the start of next week for all schools from pre-K through 12th grade. 382 students and 37 employees tested positive on August 30, 2021 . On August 31, 2021, the number of those quarantined was updated to 557. Orange County is the ninth Florida county to institute a mask mandate, going against the wishes of Republican Gov. Ron DeathSantis.

The legal battle over school re-openings, which have continued into this week, landed in court August 30, 2021 when Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson sided with the Florida Education Association and granted a temporary injunction against the state’s order that required brick-and-mortar schools to reopen. The mandate, Dodson wrote in his ruling, “arbitrarily disregards safety.” Since Aug. 9, 2021 another child has also died, bringing the total to eight. How many canaries must die in the Governor’s political power play to send kids back to school without CDC advised safety precautions?

Freedom

Posted on by Thor

Americans are dying in the name of Freedom. They fear the virus will control them or that it is an unproven poison. God rather than science is the only form of salvation from the pandemic in their minds.

Being in the deep south of Florida, I get to see this play out in real time as half of Floridians refuse to get the vaccine and who fight tooth and nail to send students back to school with no masks and no vaccine. Some honestly believe that a piece of cloth over a students mouth and nose is a greater threat than COVID-19.

More than 90% of patients in Central Florida ICU wards are Unvaccinated. Individual freedoms has become more important than personal health. These individual rights and freedoms result in a wide variety of excuses to refuse to get vaccinated. Rare breakthrough cases have resulted in people believing that the vaccine does not work. Unfounded online rumors circulate that the vaccinated are spreading the virus. Some actually believe that the shot is an excuse to inject a micro chip which is magnetized. Politicians actively ban mask mandates and vaccine passports. Political ambitions trump public health.

75 doctors from South Florida hospitals staged a walk out to protest the deluge of unvaccinated patients they must watch die. The walk out was staged to urge people to get the vaccine. One doctor now refuse to treat any patient who has not been vaccinated. Florida is now dealing with the highest number of new COVID-19 infections in the country. On August 23, 2021 Florida reported 21,329 new cases and the state has 17,215 people hospitalized, which is an increase of 24% over the previous 14 days. 228 people died on this day, an 86% increase over the past 14 days. To keep the public in the dark, the state no longer reports the numbers daily, only reporting once a week.

The state of Alabama finds itself overrun with COVID-19 patients.  Patients are left on ambulance stretchers until a bed opens up. 2743 patients have filled every available hospital bed. The University of Alabama predicted that the state may see over 5000 people hospitalized a month from today. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo called that scenario “potentially apocalyptic.”

People still go about everyday life believing they are invincible, going mask less and unvaccinated. Their personal freedom may result unknowingly in someone else’s death. Freedom today is about dying alone gasping for breath in a hospital bed. Those hospital beds however are becoming a scarce commodity.

Belief Dependent Realism

Posted on by Thor

Michael Shermer said, “What we believe determines our reality, not the other way around.” These belief systems can be quite irrational. COVID-19 is something that is invisible and therefor unless a person is themselves sick they can choose to not believe it exists.

We are a country of narcissists who only believe in “ME” not in the greater good, the “WE.” We have become a country with no empathy. When people express concerns of weakness they are attacked online.

I find myself researching various scientific papers and news sources to come up with my illustration concepts each day. However most people only look at sources that support what they already believe to be true. That is why misinformation is so widely consumed without question. That is how the Q Anon cult has been allowed to sweep the nation, creating a death cult.

Regardless of weather information is scientifically proven, a person will defend, justify and rationalize even the strangest and irrational ideas. If questioned, most will defend, deny, deflect, and double down. Truth is not as important as being right.

I get to see this play out over and over again as people react to my art online. They want me to site my sources but I am fully aware that they will not read the research if it is provided. If the source is a major news outlet, they will cry “Fake News.” mirroring the repetitive talking point of the former president of the United States.

Early in the pandemic most Americans were willing to make the sacrifice to lock down to control the spread of the virus. However after it became known that more African Americans were dying of the virus, white Americans began to invade state capitols demanding that the lock downs cease. A wave of white supremacy  continues to sweep the country fueled by the virus.

Parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place having to sent their children back to school knowing that they are not safe from the Delta variant of COVID-19. Thousands of children are already in quarantine over COVID-19 exposures. In Mississippi, 20,000 students from 800 schools are in quarantine after being exposed to the virus, and 4,500 students have been diagnosed with COVID-19. More than 10,000 students and staff in Florida’s Hillsborough County Public Schools district are in quarantine or isolation, just a week into the school year. There have been 2,640 COVID-19 cases in students and staff, according to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard on Friday.

Politics around masks could hinder the nation’s fight against Covid-19. When schools follow the science: classes can go on without disruption as long staff and students wear masks. But when staff and students do not wear masks, Covid-19 can spread, forcing people to stay home to quarantine and classes returning to virtual learning. When we are young, we are taught not to look directly at a solar eclipse. When we learn to drive we wear seat belts. Yet this simple piece of fabric has become a political football. Some conservative parents are willing to sacrifice their children’s health to prove their politics are correct.

Back to School

Posted on by Thor

School children all across Florida have returned to school. Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis issued an royal decree saying parents can elect to not mask their children if they do not want them masked. 815 physicians signed an open letter asking him to repeal his anti-mask laws. Florida currently leads the nation in the number of children hospitalized for COVID-19. A child younger than 5 has died of COVID-19 at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.

Three Broward County teachers and a teachers aid died on August 12, 2021 all in the span of 24 hours from COVID-19. The Broward County school board voted 8 to 1 to mandate that students must wear masks in school. DeathSantis later said the Florida Board of Education could withhold the paychecks of school board members and superintendents who enforce mask mandates. He later had to back down from his threat to withhold school officials’ salaries if they resist his anti-mask rule since school board officials are not on the state payroll. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended all K-12 students wear masks for in-person learning. All across the state, only 4% of students tried to find excuses not to mask up.

Hospitals in Central Florida are full and as of August 9, 2021 nearly 14,000 people were hospitalized with COVID in the state, according to federal data. 440 students in Palm Beach County have been asked to quarantine just two days into the school year, after 51 students and faculty had confirmed cases on COVID-19. Mike Burke, Palm Beach County superintendent of schools blamed the opt-out rule as the reason for the spike in cases, calling on DeathSantis to make changes to protect students from infection.

In recent weeks there has been a surge in COVID hospitalizations among children in the United States. Nearly 94,000 new child COVID-19 cases were reported last week which is a substantial increase in cases. In Florida, the state with the highest number of confirmed pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations in the country, 179 children are receiving care, according to federal data. 29 kids are hospitalized in the Orlando area including 6 in the ICU. While severe illness due to COVID-19 remains “uncommon” among children, experts say the increased trend is concerning.

On August 12, 2021 Florida shattered another record with 24,869 cases of COVID-19 with 357 more deaths.

Biden Sends 200 Ventilators to Florida

Posted on by Thor

Florida is facing a major surge of COVID-19 cases because of the DeSantis Variant. Hospitals in Central Florida are completely full and non-COVID related cases are being turned away. In Florida,  more than 10,000 people are hospitalized.

“The Strategic National Stockpile deployed 200 ventilators, 100 high-flow nasal cannula kits and related ancillary supplies to Florida earlier this week,” the spokesperson for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wrote in an email.

Asked about the shipment on July 10, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis said, Ummm duh whaaaa? He has banned local mask and vaccine mandates in Florida amid the surge in recent weeks in COVID-19 cases in the state. He is also making sure children are not mandated to wear masks when they return to school. School boards are having to countermand his orders to try and keep children safe. DeathSantis is threatening school officials who require masks by withholding their pay. The Biden administration is looking into ways to possibly compensate any officials who lose pay if DeathSantis follows through on his threat.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on August 11, 2021, “As a policy, we don’t send ventilators to states without their interest in receiving the ventilators. I think the most important question here is why would you oppose receiving the ventilators when clearly you need those in your state given the percentage of hospitalizations that are occurring?”

Florida on August 6, 2021 reported 134,506 new Covid-19 cases over the past week, more than any other seven-day period during the pandemic. Hospitals are now treating 14,787 coronavirus patients; that number represents a 145 percent increasing over the previous week.

Mask Inside

Posted on by Thor

The CDC has done an about face and recommends that everyone, both unvaccinated and vaccinated should mask up when inside if you live in areas with “substantial or high transmission” of COVID-19. They are recommending this because of  new data on the highly contagious Delta variant.

Florida is now the epicenter of the pandemic in America, so the entire state is high risk. They also said that masks should be required of everyone inside K-12 schools.

The primary reason for this about face is that less than half of the country is vaccinated and many of those people are refusing to get the jab. Another finding is that vaccinated people are becoming infected although their cases are mild, resembling a common cold. However infected vaccinated individuals can carry as high a viral load as an unvaccinated individual and therefor they can spread the virus to others.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings declared a State of Local Emergency for Orange County. He recommends that people should mask up inside. All Orange County employees will have to be vaccinated by August 31, 2021. Orange County broke the record for the all time high of new cases 1,371 on July 27, 2021. The mayor asked that all businesses mandate vaccinations. To date there have been 1,390 deaths in Orange County. Certain health care providers in Orange County have reported that up to 30% of their positive COVID-19 test results have come from vaccinated people. Approximately 95% of patients in the intensive care units of certain health care providers in Orange County are unvaccinated people. CDC has determined that levels of community transmission in Orange County, Florida are “high” which is the highest classification.

Don’t DeathSantis My Floriduh

Posted on by Thor

Floriduh Governor Ron DeathSantis has driven the state into the deep end of the pandemic pool.He is more interested in reelection stunts than working to protect his constituents from the virus.

The state is now the epicenter of the pandemic. With less than half of Floridians vaccinated the Delta variant is finding and attacking the unvaccinated. One in five cases in America are now from Florida. The state is seeing an average of 49.3 new daily Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people, according to data from the Brown School of Public Health. That’s nearly double the threshold for “red” designation on the risk-assessment map.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Deming declared a state of emergency, but his hands are tied because DeathSantis will not allow for mask mandates. Demings “strongly recommended’ that people wear masks indoors. Yet he can not enforce the recommendation. The CDC has said that everyone in high risk areas must wear a mask indoors, vaccinated or unvaccinated due to the heightened risk presented by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

DeathSantis’s goal is to dis-inform, deny, and deflect. He has blocked the Florida Health department from posting daily COVID case numbers. It shouldn’t take unending media requests and lawsuits to jar loose information the public needs to understand this horrible pandemic. It shouldn’t take unending media requests and lawsuits to jar loose information the public needs to understand this horrible pandemic. The media have to send constant requests for the numbers and fight the Governor in lawsuits to get the information. Tax payers foot the bill for his need to hide the numbers. Do not trust this man with your life. stay informed and follow the advise of health experts.

Despite this surge in cases Florida theme parks are filling to capacity with no mask requirements. There is money to be made as the guests infect one another and spread the virus across the country. DeathSantis has also been fighting the cruise ship industry insisting that the infected should be allowed to board ships to infect whoever they like. Norwegian Cruise Line filed a lawsuit against Florida, saying that said the state’s ban hurts its ability to prevent the spread of the virus onboard ships.

Advent heath hospital in Orange County is at capacity. Sick patents are lining the halls of the ER. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC said, “If you are not vaccinated, you remain at risk.” “The good news is that if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected against severe Covid, hospitalization and death, and are even protected against the known variants, including the Delta variant.” However a study done in Israel points out that the Pfizer vaccine has been loosing its efficacy. At first it was said that the Pfizer vaccine offered 94% protection against infection. However the Israel study found it is now just 35% effective against infection. The upside is that the vaccine is still very effective, protecting against serious illness and hospitalizations. Pfizer is working on a booster shot but the CDC is slow to course correct. The CDC is now considered that everyone wear masks when indoors.

The DeathSantis campaign merchandise thumbs it’s nose at science and the pandemic, taking aim at Dr. Fauci. You can order a t-Shirt that says, “Don’t Fauci My Florida.” I think a t-Shirt that says, “Don’t DeathSantis My Floriduh.” would be more accurate. DeathSantis also has beer koozies that say, “How am I going to drink my beer with a mask on?” It does take an idiot to not know how to drink a beer and them lift a mask back in place. A better Koozie might say “How am I going to drink this beer, since I am on a ventilator.”

Younger Pool of Vulnerable Hosts

Posted on by Thor

Children under the age of 12 are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. Hospital admissions are ticking up all across America thanks to the Delta variant which is 60% more transmissible than previous variants of COVID-19. It is spreading easily because people have dis-guarded masks, are crowding into indoor spaces, have resumed travel, and are resisting vaccinations.

Florida now accounts for 20% of the new cases of COVID many of those cases being the Delta Variant. Governor DeathSantis is not likely to reinstate any forms of health mandates to help stop the carnage. He has his eye on a presidential bid and needs the support of conspiracy theory believing MAGAts.

ICUs are filling with younger patients, in their 20s, 30s, and 40s,  many with no underlying health problems. Since the elderly are vaccinated the virus is burning its way through the unvaccinated population. Nearly all COVID related deaths are unvaccinated. Florida has less than 50% of its citizens vaccinated.

What is frustrating is that all this disease and death is entirely unnecessary. Misinformation first promoted by the former president is killing Americans. Many patients don’t realize their mistake until it’s too late. Doctors and nurses exhausted after more than a year of battling the virus are now becoming overwhelmed again by the needless death. They end of resenting the patients who are extending the pandemic needlessly. There is no cure once you are sick enough to need admission into the hospital.

675,000 Americans died in the in the U.S. 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. As of July 19, 2021 there have been Spanish Flu.  It would be nice to think that we as a nation had learned something in the 100 plus years since that tragedy. However history is repeating itself and stubborn and misinformed people are willingly going to slaughter. They believe until their dying breath that COVID is not real.

Little Shop of Vaccines

Posted on by Thor

Covid-19 cases are surging around the world, fueled by highly contagious variants of the coronavirus that continue to spread quickly. Covid-19 deaths have surpassed 3 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

India on April 18, 2021 reported 261,500 new cases of Covid-19, the fourth consecutive day of more than 200,000 infections and the highest since the start of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health. They also reported 1,501 new deaths, the highest in almost 10 months.

In Florida COVID-19 cases have  surged since spring break and deaths from new variants are rising. As of April 15, 2021, there were 5,177 cases that involved variants of concern in the state — six times higher than what was there in mid-March, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The Sentinel obtained the figures through a lawsuit it filed against the Florida Department of Health.

Cases across the United States continue to climb despite the epic vaccine roll out by the new administration. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month that hospitals are seeing more younger un-vaccinated adults  are being admitted with Covid-19 as more contagious variants spread. In Michigan, where Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are rapidly increasing, case rates are at an all-time high for those age 19 and younger, according to state data published April 6, 2021.

States have begun to lift health safety measures to quickly allowing the virus to spread. Controlling the spread of the virus is as simple as following health measures like mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing. However politicians insist on making these safety measures a political flashpoint, claiming they are an infringement on civil liberties. Experts spanning law, public health and privacy policy say it’s a false choice.

 

5 States: 44% of Cases

Posted on by Thor

CNN reported that five states account for 44% of the COVID-19 cases in the past week according to data from Johns Hopkins University. New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey had more than 196,400 of the country’s 453,360 cases reported in the last week, according to data available the morning of April 7. 2021.

Michigan has been hit especially hard with 6,600 cases a day over a week as opposed to 1,350 daily cases five weeks ago. The highly contagious and deadly B.1.1.7 variant of the COVID virus has helped cause the spike in cases. People are also experiencing pandemic fatigue and are taking fewer precautions giving the virus plenty of opportunity to spread.

The B.1.1.7, first identified in the UK, is now the most common strain of coronavirus in the United States, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said April 7, 2021.

With more-transmissible variants adding up, surges like Michigan’s may soon be seen more widely, even though vaccination rates have increased nationally, epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm said. The CDC says more than 16,200 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant have been confirmed in surveillance testing in the US, and B.1.1.7 has been found in every state. This number does not represent the total number of such cases circulating in the United States, but rather only those found by analyzing samples. Florida has more that 3000 confirmed cases of the B.1.1.7 UK variant, more than any other state.

The US has averaged 774 Covid-19 deaths a day over the last week. According to the latest CDC data, 19.4% of the total US population was fully vaccinated as of the morning of April 7, 2021; and 57.4% of people age 65 and older are fully vaccinated. But the US has a long way to go before reaching herd immunity. Dr. Anthony Fauci has estimated 70%-85% of the population needs to become immune.