Disney Digital Brains

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Disney World in Orlando, Florida shut down at the beginning of the pandemic but re-opened as the cases spiked in Florida over the summer. Guests had to wear face masks at all times, except while eating or swimming, but enforcement has been a challenge.

Some guests would take off their masks for the photo opportunity. At first the parks refused to offer those photos to guests but that meant that guests who were wearing masks could not get a copy of the photo. To overcome that problem, digital masks were Photoshopped onto guests who did not wear a mask, allowed those in the photo properly wearing their face masks to get the photos.

Since this issue caused online discussion, Disney decided to reverse the policy and will not be digitizing face masks over guests’ faces any longer. Convincingly Photoshopping a mask onto a guests face is a challenge, and it comes off as a clear fake. My advice is that Disney Photoshop brains onto guests who slip their masks off. It might hide most of their face, but it makes them seem like they are capable of thinking and reasoning. The only real solution to the Photoshop conundrum is to escort any guest photographed without a mask out of the park. Better yet close the damn parks during the pandemic.

In September 2020 Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis signed an executive order removing all statewide restrictions. This executive order allowed the Central Florida theme parks to re-open. Disney invested $2.4 billion in COVID-19 related safety measures in latest quarter. It would be difficult or near impossible to contract trace COVID-19 cases back to Disney World. The infected person might have been infected at a restaurant off property, at the hotel, or on the trip to or from Florida. This is what allows the parks to function with immunity. Disney Land out in California remains closed because that Governor is working to keep his constituents safe.

Florida reported 11,699 new COVID-19 cases, the most since July, as the total deaths near 20,000. The Florida governor has been bragging about the first vaccines to be administered, but it will be many months before everyday citizens are able to be inoculated. Florida has the fourth most deaths of any state with 20,133, following New York (35,360), California (20,969), and Texas (23,911). The following months will be the darkest of the pandemic.

Blue Sky

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Ron DeathSantis was one of the last governors to shut down the state of Florida at the beginning of the pandemic and he was one of the first to open up to full capacity much to the pleasure of his mentor POTUS Trump. At press conferences The Governor always puts a favorable spin on his handling of the pandemic by picking out obscure facts from the data and ignoring the growing danger as the state is being hit by a wave much bigger that the summer surge. This is known as the blue sky policy. If people are ignorant of the facts they can go about their merry way until they are also infected.

Like the POTUS, his denial of science puts every Floridian in danger since many are encouraged to not wear masks and gather in large groups. He is literally killing his constituents. Though the hope of vaccines are on the horizon, his backwards policies may result in many denying their efficacy. To him politics are more important than human lives.

The Sun Sentinel reported that, the Florida Department of Health’s (DOH) county-level spokespeople were ordered in September to stop issuing public statements about COVID-19 until after the Nov. 3 election. Rebekah Jones a former DOH worker had her computer and phone seized by police because she was reporting the daily hard facts about the spread of COVID-19 that don’t mirror the Blue Sky policy. He withheld data about the spread of the virus in schools, prisons, hospitals and only after prolonged legal battles could reporters gain access to those facts. The sunshine law requires certain proceedings of government agencies to be open or available to the public. When it comes to COVID-19 there has been a black out. Any messaging has to go through the Governor and he insists on Blue Sky messaging rather than stating facts. He seems to think he can pack everyone into bars and restaurants at full capacity despite the rising tide, and he can still keep the at risk population safe. The fact is he can’t. Rather than make adjustments to slow down the spread, he seems to want everyone infected. He seems to have embraced the disgraced former POTUS advisor, Scott Atlas’ herd immunity theory which will result in a huge spike in needless deaths. With community spread as wide spread as it is becoming, this will be a very dark winter with very dark sky’s.

Joe Biden state, “Out of our collective pain, we will find our collective purpose: to control the pandemic, to save lives, and to heal as a nation.” Lets hope DeSantis eventually decides to help rather than hinder as COVID sweeps through Florida a second time. Information is power. Stay informed. Stay safe.

Data Raid

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Storm troopers entered the home of Rebekah Jones to seize her computers and tech. They didn’t take the router or other tech in the home,  just the computer she uses to keep Floridians informed about the daily death toll of COVID-19. They also took her cell phone which has all the contacts who have helped her in the quest to keep Floridains informed.

On Twitter she posted home surveillance video of the raid as officers entered her home with guns drawn. She answered the door and was pushed outside. She was asked who was inside and she told them her husband and two children were upstairs. An unmasked officer stepped around a child’s ball in the hallway and shouted up the steps for the husband to come down. As guns were pointed up the steps Rebekah shouted for them to stop pointing their guns at her children.

Quoting Jones from her tweet, “There will be no update today. At 8:30 am this morning, state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech. They were serving a warrant on my computer after DOH filed a complaint. They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids.” She went on to say, “This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power.”

A search warrant had been issued based on a complaint from DeSantis’s Florida Department of Health (DOH) regarding an investigation claiming Jones sent an alert to the DOH emergency alert system. She denied the claims in that charge. In a December 9, 2020 tweet Rebekah reported, “The judge who signed the search order of my house was appointed by Governor Desantis and sworn in less than a month before he signed that warrant. In civil court. He’s not even a criminal court judge. It was one of his first actions as judge.” Rebekah could face 5 years in prison if convicted of cyber crime.

Rebekah Jones worked for DOH and she designed and built their COVID-19 data dashboard which was praised by members of the White House corona virus task force at the time. Six months ago she was fired when she refused to alter data to downplay the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic as Florida Ron DeathSantis wanted to fully re-open up the state. Jones created her own version of the dashboard with more accurate data. It is the source of information I turn to when seeking honest numbers about the outbreak in Florida.

In an interview on CNN with Chris Cuomo, Rebekah stated, “I have not had access to any systems at DOH for over 6 months. I am not a hacker. This is just a very thinly veiled attempt of the governor to intimidate scientists, and get back at me while trying to get to my sources. DeSantis needs to worry less about what I am writing about, and worry more about the people who are sick and dying in his state. And doing this to me will not stop me from reporting the data, ever. She started a Go Fund Me and plans to get a new computer so she can get immediately back to work. Data on Rebekah’s Florida Community Dashboard is now being updated.

DeSantis has been strong arming a Blue Sky campaign that ignores the pandemic and paints a rosy picture of his handling of all the death and agony.  The Sun Sentinel reported that Governor DeSantis in the weeks leading up to the November election ordered health officials to not talk about COVID-19 with the public.

Ron Filipkowski, the commissioner and vice-chair for the 12th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission tendered his letter of resignation in response to the treatment of Rebekah Jones. Lets hope more politicians, lawmakers and civil servants stand up to this abuse of power by the Florida Governor. In response, Rebekah tweeted, “I continue to be amazed not by the depravity of our leaders, but by the strength of our community.“

It Is What It Is

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Trump has not been to a Coronavirus Task Force meeting in months. Simply put he doesn’t give a damn how many people die. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with no experience with infectious diseases, has caught the presidents ear and he is a yes man, telling the president what he wants to hear.

Atlas, put out a Tweet that claimed that widespread use of face masks does not help slow the spread of COVID-19. Twitter had to remove the tweet for spreading false and misleading information. Atlas frequently clashes with other members of the White House Coronavirus task force. Last month, an NBC News reporter overheard CDC Director Robert Redfield saying on a phone call: “Everything he says is false.” US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) recommends people wear masks in public settings and when around people who don’t live in their household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.

Atlas has rejected the need for widespread community testing, arguing that the administration should focus almost exclusively on protecting and testing elderly populations while pushing for the rest of the economy to return to normal, this official said. “Everything he says and does points toward herd immunity,” a senior administration official said. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have warned that the “herd immunity” approach is dangerous.

The My Pillow Guy caught the presidents ear and was promoting an unproven treatment for COVID-19. He proclaimed the President was “enthusiastic” about the unproven therapeutic. Many reports have focused on its considerable toxicity, which has led to accidental — and sometimes deliberate poisonings, including for suicide. It has also poisoned animals. The US Army Institute of Infectious Diseases conducted tests on the drug’s effect on Covid-19, which were halted due to “inconclusive” results.

The White House has been a hot spot for the virus having more cases than all of New York State. Trump who recovered from COVID-19 has not embraced simple safety measures instead he is holding super spreader rallies all across the country, effectively spreading the disease. Trump believes that if you put your head in the sand it will all go away. His incompetence continues to cause needless deaths, it is what it is.

In White House coronavirus task force reports obtained by CNN this week, officials say there are “early signs of deterioration in the Sun Belt and continued deterioration in the Midwest and across the Northern States.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got this report just prior to Trump holding a super spreader rally in Sanford Florida but the governor tried to hide the report claim all is well. He also wants to stop sharing the daily numbers from testing just as the worst is about to begin.

The United States just reported its highest spike in new COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began with more than 83,000 new cases on Friday October 23, 2020.  Hospitalizations and daily death tolls are rising across the country, with experts warning that the worst is yet to come. In a few weeks, deaths will start to increase. It is a pattern that repeats itself with each new ave of the virus with no plan to stop the spread. 224,000 Americans have died so far from COVID-19.

The Sower

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Donald Trump held a rally in Sanford, Florida. Air Force 1 landed at the Sanford airport and bleachers and a makeshift stage were set up on the runway. Thousands of mask less fans showed up believing that Trumps claims of immunity would become their immunity to COVID-19.

A mask less Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis made his appearance giving high fives to screaming fans like he wan entering an NBA championship game. 25 yards later he wiped his nose with the hand everyone had slapped.

Trump plans to continue holding death rally’s across battleground states. His concern are his poling numbers not weather his voters will be alive come November 3, 2020. Trump threatened to go out into the audience and kiss every man and every beautiful women. First lady Melania Trump was last seen September 29, 2020 at the first presidential debate, mask less inn the audience. My guess is that Melania is still quarantining and Trump is horny as hell after all his steroid treatments.

People behind Trump were issued MAGA face masks so that the TV shot would show plenty of masks. But masks were not required for the thousands of other packed shoulder to shoulder around the makeshift stage. CNN Reporter Jim Acosta reported from the event having to shout over Rumpers shouting “CNN sucks!”  In his live shot Jim said, “You know what really sucks? Getting COVID-19.”

The Trump administration has decided that herd immunity is their new policy. Herds of sheep keep packing Trump Rallys.

More than 9000 Florida Children Infected

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The Daily News reported that more than 9000 Florida school aged children have tested positive for COVID-19 in the two weeks since schools opened. The Florida Department of Health reported 48,730 confirmed COVID-19 cases among children 17 years old or younger in new data released Tuesday. That’s 8,995 more cases than at the previous update, which ended on Aug. 9, 15 days earlier. More than 17,000 of those cases are in children ages 14 to 17, or high-school aged. About 13,000 patients are ages 5-10. More than 600 children have been hospitalized. Since Aug. 9, 2020 another child has also died, bringing the total to eight. The Florida union representing thousands of janitors, bus drivers and other front line workers at Florida schools suggests that schools reconsider opening in the fall.

Rebekah Jones who created The Covid Monitor which tracks cases in schools, reported that, Florida Governor DeSantis’ Department of Health claims that the number of COVID-19 cases in Florida schools is confidential. As she said,  “They publish the age, gender, county, symptom onset data, case date, travel info, and more.. but a count of cases by school- which they published then DELETED!!- is “confidential???” NO. OUR SCHOOLS. OUR KIDS. OUR DATA. DEMAND BETTER FROM YOUR GOV!!”

The Florida Education Association sued Governor Ron DeSantis who insisted that all children must return to school in person regardless of the risks associated with the pandemic. On Tuesday  August 25, 2020 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.” The state school board has filed an appeal.

On August 21, 2020 CNN reported that the White House officially declared teachers Essential Workers  as part of their efforts to encourage schools around the country to reopen for in-person learning. The guidance for essential workers states that they can continue to work even after exposure to a confirmed case of Covid-19, provided they remain asymptomatic.

On Monday, August 24, 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed the language on its website about who should get a COVID-19 test, a move that has baffled public health officials. “If you have been in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with a COVID-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms, you do not necessarily need a test unless you are a vulnerable individual or your health care provider or State or local public health officials recommend you take one,” the guidelines now read, in contrast to the previous recommendation, which called for testing ALL close case contacts.

CNN broke the news that the decision to change the wording was made not by the CDC, but by top government officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and could even reach the White House, where President Donald Trump has made clear he believes the United States is doing too much testing for the COVID-19. The change, made without any rationale or explanation, further erodes the scientific community’s confidence in the CDC. For months, the story has been that more—not less—testing could only help control the world’s worst outbreak of the virus. Politics have infected the pandemic. It is what it is.

DEO Jalopy

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the online Florida Unemployment system known as Connect as an old Jalopy in the Datona 500. As politicians do, he blamed his predecessor Rick Scott for the failings of the system. Florida has had more than 3.48 million unemployment applications filed since mid-March. Only California had more first-time claims.

The Orlando Weekly reported that the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) distributed $13 billion in state and federal assistance to 1.8 million unemployment claimants. The bulk of the money came from a $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit, which expired at the end of July. Connect was designed by the previous Governor Rick Scott and it could not handle the massive number of unemployment claims that began pouring in after the pandemic hit the state in March. The system, which cost nearly $78 million dollars to design was put in place in 2013.

The firm hired to design the site, Deloitte Consulting, got the job by offering the lowest bid. The firm has just on another bid to handle the states Medicaid data. In an interview Monday with Miami television reporter Jim DeFede, DeSantis said, “I mean having studied how it was internally constructed,” DeSantis said, “I think the goal was for whoever designed, it was, ‘Let’s put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way, so people just say, oh, the hell with it, I’m not going to do that.” The DeSantis administration was left having to fix a system that could not keep up with demand in the middle of economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19. The state has spent more than $120 million in contracts to prop up the flawed unemployment process during the pandemic.

So, is the DEO Connect site now working? Of course not. Representative Anna Eskamani reported that, “The DEO is aware that a LOT of people are missing both back pay and their $600 payments. DEO has made this issue a priority to address and assures us that money is being released daily. In July the CONNECT system did finally provide a way to at least track $600 FPUC payments.”

For many people who apply for benefits, the online nightmare feels like a full time job. Many feel they are being denied wrongly. Those that are denied are given no reason. DeSantis said that people should not have to keep re logging into the broken system to certify their weeks in order to get paid, but his administration followed up with exactly the opposite information. The Governor ordered work search requirement suspended but people were being denied for not meeting those requirements. FOX 13 Tampa reporter Craig Patrick pointed out that call center questions are seldom answered and responses run in circles. The whole system seems designed to be sure applicants get frustrated and leave in frustration.

Wesh 2 News reported a DEO response, “We are asking Floridians to be patient as we take action to increase our ability to serve those whose employment has been negatively impacted by the mitigation efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.”

Starting July 25, 2020 those $600 payments, going to about 25 million Americans, will stop, which could cause a flood of evictions as people can no longer pay rent. Law makers in Washington have not been able to come to an agreement about what can be done. The system is a wreck.

Hell, Hug Em!

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Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis suggested that hugging nursing home residents who are vulnerable to COVID-19 if fine so long as you wear PPE. He is notorious for wearing one blue glove during a press conference and not knowing how to put on a mask. He spoke against “fixating” on testing for COVID-19 when developing plans for allowing loved ones to visit vulnerable residents of long-term care facilities.

He said, “Do not only fixate on testing… look, I’m comfortable with the PPE,” DeathSantis said. “Hell, hug ’em, I mean come on. If you have PPE on and you hug and don’t sneeze or do something on them, you’re going to be fine… obviously, if you’re there for 30 minutes doing that and then you do, well then that’s going to be a different situation.” He followed with, “But to just have… just go give a hug, I think you could do that, and I think that would be very meaningful,” he added. “I kind of feel like to stay six feet away, it’s kind of still, you know, providing the reminder that it’s still not normal… so I do think the touch is important.”

Yesterday Florida saw over 16,000 new cases of COVID-19 as testing re-opened after testing sites were shut down due to the hurricane. That is a new record for any state of recorded cases in a single day. To date the state has 550,101 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 8238 deaths.

Despite the surge, DeathSantis hopes to again allow visits to nursing and other care homes, which had been halted in mid-March when the Florida outbreak was much smaller. He supports immediately allowing those who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies to visit loved ones, claiming that a positive antibody test indicates that a person is immune to the virus for “six months.” There is no clear consensus among experts that an antibody test proves a person is immune to the virus. There are over 11,000 cases of COVID-19 in Retirement Communities and over 2900 deaths.

In an interview with CNN‘s Brianna Keilar, Dr. Adrian Burrowes from Orlando said it is reckless and irresponsible for Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis to say it is safe to hug with PPE on during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A hug can communicate that we are safe, that we are loved and that we are not alone. However in the age of COVID-19, the safest thing is to avoid hugs. If you need a hug, take precautions. Wear a mask. Hug outdoors. Try to avoid touching the other person’s body or clothes with your face and your mask. Don’t hug someone who is coughing or has other symptoms. Try not to cry. Tears and runny noses increase the risk for coming into contact with more fluids that contain the virus.

Eye of the Hurricane

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In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet for just a moment. As I painted this, hurricane Isaias was downgraded to a tropical storm as it churns off the coast of Florida. The latest projections show it hitting the coast of Central Florida about 8pm tonight with winds of about 75 miles per hour making it a category one hurricane. Orlando is under a tropical storm warning for now.

With hundreds of people dying every day in the Sunshine State from COVID-19, this hurricane just seems like business as usual, a sign of global warming that is another disaster that can be ignored by those in power.

The latest of the COVID-19 front from Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force is that we are in a “new phase” in the battle against the virus. She is urging all Americans to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines. “What we are seeing today is different than from March and April. It is extraordinarily wide spread in both rural and urban areas.” she said in an interview with CNN. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned that the country could see 300,000 deaths by the end of 2020.

When you try to digest these huge numbers, then a category one hurricane seems just like a blip on the map of a far reaching tragedy. The death tolls will depend on how southern and western states respond to the outbreaks in the coming weeks. Birx pointed out that we need to stop super spreading events where the virus can spread like wildfire.

Testing facilities in Florida are being shit down because of the impending hurricane. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management said Wednesday in a news release that its testing sites simply can’t hold up to the threat of a potential tropical cyclone because they include tents and other free-standing structures. Orange county soon followed suit, saying all health department-run testing sites will also be closed into next week. Orange’s Health Department said sites there would be closed at least through Wednesday. So you can expect the case numbers to drop and politicians will use the lull as an excuse to claim all is back to normal. It is not.

Florida Governor Ron Disaterous signed an order Friday declaring “a state of emergency in every coastal county of Florida’s east coast, from Miami-Dade to Nassau counties,” he said. This is business as usual for him as he seems incapable of even admitting Florida is experiencing a health crisis that could surpass what New York went through in April. Floridians are more likely to die from COVID-19 than a tree limb breaking.

Blip

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On July 14, 2020 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that “Florida has a COVID-19 BLIP.” He went on to say that Florida has had “a lot of different blips.” He stressed that “despite increased positivity rates, Florida was not comparable to other hot spots, like New York.”  However Florida has surpassed New York in the number of cases per day. On Friday July 30, 2020, 253 people died from the virus in Florida, a new single-day record for the fourth day in a row.Half of all the reported deaths in Florida happened in July. That is NO BLIP!

A blip is defined as “an unexpected, minor, and typically temporary deviation from a general trend.”  Physicians and nurses however are besieged by the surge of new cases filling the hospitals. Experts and medical staff fear the worst is yet to come.

Florida was one of the first states to relax COVID-19 restrictions and the results are becoming abundantly clear. DeSantis refuses to issue a state wide mandate that would require the use of masks when out in public. On Sunday, July 12, 2020 the Sunshine State recorded 15,300 new cases—more than all of Europe. The number of cases per day have continued to hover around 10,000 per day. Dozens of the state’s intensive-care units are at capacity. Miami has become the new Wuhan.

Memorial Hospital West hospital CEO Leah Carpenter said, “Our ICU capacity is beyond 100 percent.”As of Friday July 10, 2020, At least 52 Florida hospitals had no ICU capacity left at all. Rebekah Jones who created the Florida Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard was fired for not manipulating data to help in the re-opening plans. She said,  “Hospital staff have the hardest job in the world right now, more so than any of us scientists,” she said. “That most hospitals in Florida are at or near capacity frightens me. It should frighten everyone.” She now runs her own COVID-19 Community Dashboard which is meant to more accurately reflect what is actually happening in Florida. In Brevard County patients are being treated in the hallways. Some hospitals that are full are having to send patients to other hospitals.

The Harvard Global Health Institute recommended a number of states, including Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana, and South Carolina, institute a mandatory stay-at-home order to curtail severe outbreaks.

Carlos Migoya, president and CEO of Jackson Health System in Miami-Dade, said “You have people who are aggressively saying they don’t have to wear a mask and don’t have to do social distancing,” he explained. “Those are the kind of people spreading this disease. If we don’t get this under control and have too many more infections, we are going to have problems.”

At a ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on July 24,2020 DeSantis discussed, an initiative – called One Goal One Florida that “encourages” the public to follow four guidelines: Protect the vulnerable, practice proper hygiene, practice social distancing and wear a mask if in close contact with another person. This is a BLIP of a service announcement, too little too late.