Is Florida Turning Into A Hot COVID-Mess?

COVID-Don + COVID-Ron

There are different ways at looking to see which countries have, thus far, been hit hardest by the pandemic. One way is to see how many cases have been confirmed per one million in the population. Not counting mini states, Spain has had the hardest rate-- 5,940-- followed by Iceland (5,285), Ireland (4,890), Belgium (4,772), the U.S. (4,583), Italy (3,728), the U.K. (3,586) and Switzerland (3,537).

The rates for several U.S. states dwarf the rate of infection in other countries. 9 states have had worse pandemics than Spain and 17 have had worse rates than the U.K. This is a list of states arranged in order of number of cases per million on Thursday and again (in parentheses) yesterday. States in red are headed for Wave II catastrophes.

• New York- 18,151 (18,486)
• New Jersey- 16,215 (16,481)
• Massachusetts- 11,923 (12,323)
• Rhode Island- 11,343 (11,964)
• Connecticut- 9,947 (10,495)
• Delaware- 7,418 (7,877)
• Louisiana- 7,204 (7,407)
• Illinois- 6,940 (7,296)
• Maryland- 5,939 (6,418)
• Michigan- 4,965 (5,057)
• Pennsylvania- 4,938 (5,101)
• Nebraska- 4,868 (5,283)
• Iowa- 4,334 (4,541)
• South Dakota- 4,286 (4,507)
• Indiana- 3,870 (4,126)
• Colorado- 3,619 (3,757)
• Mississippi- 3,522 (3,796)
• Georgia- 3,388 (3,551)
• Virginia- 3,259 (3,560)
• Kansas- 2,644 (2,726)
• New Mexico- 2,624 (2,788)
• New Hampshire- 2,487 (2,615)
• Washington- 2,450 (2,523)
• Tennessee- 2,445 (2,531)
• Minnesota- 2,382 (2,778)
• Alabama- 2,264 (2,401)
• Ohio- 2,256 (2,389)
• North Dakota- 2,247 (2,493)
• Nevada- 2,110 (2,226)
• Utah- 2,105 (2,205)
• Florida- 2,012 (2,123)-- suspected phony numbers
• Wisconsin- 1,936 (2,093)
• California- 1,893 (1,996)
• Arizona- 1,741 (1,915)
• Missouri- 1,720 (1,765)
• North Carolina- 1,621 (1,774)
• Kentucky- 1,617 (1,721)
• South Carolina- 1,590 (1,682)
• Texas- 1,544 (1,644)
• Vermont- 1,494 (1,506)
• Arkansas- 1,447 (1,577)
• Idaho- 1,316 (1,354)
• Oklahoma- 1,254 (1,342)
• Wyoming- 1,211 (1,280)
• Maine- 1,164 (1,255)
• Oregon- 825 (856)
• West Virginia- 800 (833)
• Alaska- 529 (536)
• Hawaii- 450 (451)
• Montana- 432 (438)

Yesetrday afternoon, the U.S. crossed the million and a half caseload mark. On Friday, Yahoo News' Alex Nazaryan reported that Palm Beach County, Trump's home and newly opened by order of Governor Ron DeSantis, is emerging as a major COVID hot spot. People who pay close attention to Florida's official COVID stats have noticed that the state is deliberately under-reporting its own numbers, presumably to help Trump make the false case that it is safe to disregard social distrancing and to reopen businesses early. A leaked White House document indicates rising concern about increasing cases there and in San Bernardino in California and Marshall County in northeast Alabama.

“Palm Beach County, FL reported a 71% increase in new cases the last 7 days compared to the previous 7 days,” the document explains. “The state authorized Palm Beach County to begin Phase 1 of reopening on 11 May, which includes the reopening of barbershops, salons, restaurants, and other businesses.”

...The information in the document is attributed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and was collected on May 12, which means cases were rising even before the county began to reopen on May 11. Other parts of the state had begun to reopen earlier, on May 4.

...The DHS document says that San Bernardino County in California “reported an increase of 782 cases in the last 7 days, nearly doubling new cases reported in the previous 7 days. County officials recently began Phase II of the county’s reopening plan, lifting requirements for mask use on 8 May.”

Marshall County, Ala., the document says, “reported 217 cases in the last 7 days, a 517% increase over the previous 7 days. Marshall County is home to several poultry plants and the meat packing industry accounts for 8% of the county’s employment. On 11 May, additional businesses were reopened.”

Public health officials have warned that lifting stay-at-home orders would lead to more infections and, inevitably, more deaths. Some governors have either discounted or dismissed such warnings, as has President Trump.

Encompassing the beachfront and inland communities north of Miami, Palm Beach County has a population density about four times that of Marshall County, which is in the northeastern corner of Alabama, and seven times that of San Bernardino County, which encompasses the desert region east of Los Angeles. Population density is thought to contribute to the spread of the coronavirus, which causes the lung disease known as COVID-19. That disease has killed more than 87,000 Americans, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The coronavirus also tends to strike older people. The average age of a Palm Beach County resident is 45 years old, whereas the average Marshall County resident is 39 years old and the San Bernardino County resident is only 33 years old.

Palm Beach is home to many retirement communities, a fact that worries health officials. The county has recorded 263 coronavirus deaths, three more than the entirety of South Korea, which recorded its first coronavirus case on the same late January day as the United States.

...Florida was one of the first states to reopen, at the urging of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had also been slow to close his state, effectively waiting for permission from Trump to do so. DeSantis’s faltering and confusing response to the coronavirus made him among the nation’s least popular governors, according to a national survey conducted in April.

In recent days, however, DeSantis has been celebrated by some for Florida’s seeming success in battling the coronavirus. But a good part of that success appears to have come from shelter-in-place orders by mayors who acted ahead of DeSantis.

In California, the Inland Empire is spiking dangerously, as is Orange County. San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties all have big populations and all have significant and dangerously aggressive opposition to the governor's social distancing rules, opposition that has gone unanswered and thereby encouraged more opposition-- and more cases and deaths. On Friday, all 3 counties reported outsized one-day increases in cases:

• Riverside County- 5,618 cases (+178)
• Orange County- 4,222 (+157)
• San Bernardino County- 3,463 (+113)

Meanwhile...