In other news, the national death toll from the coronavirus has crossed 3,600 with over 180,000 identified cases as of about 4 p.m today.
Meanwhile, Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier (CVN-71) has written a letter to the Pentagon begging them to him let unload his crew of 4,000 into quarantine now that over 200 have tested positive for the coronavirus.
He shouldn't have to ask, but I bet he'll be quietly reassigned for this.
Finally, epidemiologists including those directly advising the state of Florida say the virus is already past the point of being contained as the number of cases is now doubling every three days. They say the governor's refusal to issue a stay-at-home order have allowed it to spread wider.
Thomas Hladish, a University of Florida research scientist who specializes in disease modeling and has been advising the state on the outbreak, said that while epidemiologists might disagree on the nuances of their projections, they all agree on the main point.
“We do understand the math and the models well enough to say with great confidence that Florida is going to have a huge public health crisis,” Hladish said. “And we are just at the beginning of it right now.”
By 11 a.m. Saturday, Florida had reported more than 3,700 cases — an increase of nearly 1,000 in 24 hours.
Florida remains one of the few states with a large outbreak not to issue a statewide order to keep residents at home. Several counties across the state, including Hillsborough and Pinellas, issued “safer at home” orders in the last week.
Experts say that because there's such a great deal of time between infection and when people start showing symptoms, the number of cases identified today only reflects where the virus was about three weeks ago. You may recall that three weeks ago is when people were still crowding into beaches for spring break.
JUST NOW— Gov. Ron DeSantis says the White House task force hasn't told him to issue a statewide stay-at-home-order: "The task force is not recommending this. If they do, that’s something that would carry a lot of weight with me."
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) March 31, 2020
He's waiting on Trump to act which means Florida is fucked. Voters need to remember this in November.