Why is Florida the COVID capital of the US? – Gainesville Sun

Paul Avery, Peter Hirschfeld and Chuck Hobson| Guest columnists

Since late July, the pandemic has worsened in Florida due to the spread of the highly transmissibledelta variant of the SARS-COV-2 virus. Hospitals throughout the state are strained to capacity with COVID-19 patients, and their ICUs are overflowing.

One of us works as ICUmedicaldirector at a local medical center and daily sees the desperation of patients on ventilators and bedside cardiopulmonary bypass. Unvaccinated patients make up the vast majority of COVID-19 hospital admissions and deaths at North Florida Regional Medical Center.

In fact, Florida currently has the highest per capita death rate from COVID-19 of any state in the country. Most of these facts have received considerable local andeven national press coverage.

There is a mystery that has not been addressed properly, in our opinion. While our neighbors in Georgia, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana have death rates from COVID-19 that are also high, their situation has an obvious explanation:Those states have among the lowest vaccination rates in the country.In Florida this is not the case.

In fact, by aggressively pursuing vaccination of seniors early after vaccines were developed, Florida achieved a relatively high vaccination rate for a Southern state, roughly equal to the national average. Florida is an extreme outlier: a state with a relatively high vaccination rate and simultaneously the highest death rate in the country. Why are residents here dying so fast?

We can rule out some obvious misperceptions immediately. First, it is not true that the high death rate in Florida means that vaccinations are not preventing COVID-19 deaths.The efficacy of the vaccines in preventing serious illness and death is astounding and has been proven in study after study around the world, and is reflected in the data from Alachua County.

Florida nurse practitioner on recent surge

As coronavirus cases continue to trend upward across the state of Florida, a nurse practitioner working in Miami depicts the dire situation that he says has brought about a 600 percent increase of COVID patients into their ICUs. (Aug. 10)

AP

Second, it is not true that patients are dying at a higher rate in Florida simply because Florida has one of the highest populations of seniors in the country. Seniors are known to be less resilient against the disease, although deaths are now occurring in all age categories.

While 20% of Florida residents are above age 65 (compared to 16.5% in Alabama and 12.5% in Texas), this age class is the most highly vaccinated of all. Over 80% of Florida seniors have been fully vaccinated, making it highly unlikely that seniors account for the high overall death rate.

The primary factor that separates different populations regarding their susceptibility to COVID-19 is human behavior, including willingness to be vaccinated but also participation in masking and social distancing regimes. For most of 2021 Floridians have taken this pandemic entirely too lightly, and the main explanation for this attitude toward COVID-19 infection has been the approach taken by Gov. RonDeSantis.

DeSantis gets credit for a reasonable vaccination campaign in the state, for attempting to keep the economy open and recently for emphasizing the use of the REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail for outpatient use.Howeverhe has, at the same time, fanned the flames of anti-vax, anti-maskculturein Florida by emphasizing personal liberty at all costs over the basic tenets of public health.

In his desire to declare Florida open for business he consistently downplayed the severity of thisdelta wave. He has acted to punish localities who work to protect their citizens by mandating masks in schools, and businessesthatattempt to require vaccinations. Other Republican governors and legislatures have attempted to outlaw public health measures, but none so early nor so loudly as DeSantis.

The governors bully pulpit matters. Floridians and tourists alike have gotten the message from state leaders that the pandemic is over, go out, visit Mickey and enjoy life in the Sunshine State. This message is the direct cause of the current crisis in our state and the explanation of why we areNo.1 in COVID-19 deaths.

We insist that our public health care leaders be allowed to deploy the strongest tools at their disposal to fight this pandemic. We need the state to make all COVID-19 data easily available so that localities and individuals can make informed decisions.

Lets work together to bring the number of cases and deaths down before the next variant arrives, and make Florida a role model for the nation rather than an object lesson in bad policy.

Paul Avery,PhD, andPeter J. Hirschfeld,PhD, are professorsofphysicsat theUniversity of Florida,Charles Hobson,MD,PhD, isICUmedicaldirectoratNorth Florida Regional Medical Center.These are the authors personal views and do not reflect the positions of their organizations.

Send a letter to the editor (up to 200 words) to letters@gainesville.com. Letters must include the writer's full name and city of residence. Additional guidelines for submitting letters and longer guest columns can be found at bit.ly/sunopinionguidelines.

Get a digital subscription to the Gainesville Sun. Includes must-see content on Gainesville.com and Gatorsports.com, breaking news and updates on all your devices, and access to the Gainesville.com ePaper. Visit http://www.gainesville.com/subscribenow to sign up.

Follow this link:
Why is Florida the COVID capital of the US? - Gainesville Sun