The Board of County Commissioners is now firmly in control of the pandemic response. In today’s meeting, they will determine whether or not the group wishes to make the mask mandate a permanent future in the county’s state of emergency or continue to renew it week to week.
Florida is still far from being out of the woods with its spread of COVID-19. However, recent data suggests the state may have finally reached its peak.
On Tuesday, the outlook was bleak. Florida hit a new record for the most COVID-19 deaths announced in a single day with 277, bringing the death toll record across the state to 8,685 people, according to the Florida Department of Health. The second-worst day was just behind it with 257 deaths on July 31.
Florida also added 5,831 new COVID-19 infections, which brought the state up to 542,792. To zoom out, the nation now has 5,150,590 cases as of Wednesday, which saw an increase of 9,382 on that day. The U.S. has lost 164,681 to the pandemic with 144 added on Wednesday. In Tampa Bay, the numbers are still putting the region on the charts. The Bay added 797 new cases and 44 deaths on Tuesday.
But when you look at the larger picture, there’s a hopeful image: the state’s average number of new cases trended downward for two weeks until the news on Tuesday. In fact, at the start of the week the state saw its lowest numbers since late June.
However, testing across the state is sporadic at best. Some days there are 60,000 people tested and other days it’s more than 100,000. Holidays and hurricanes caused facilities to close for days at a time.
The good news is hospitalizations as a whole have continued to decline — or so we assume, as the Florida Department of Health only began releasing the hospitalization data in early July. The past month and a half’s worth of data does show a decline in the last few weeks, though. Hospitalizations peaked in July at 9,500.
Hillsborough County added seven deaths Tuesday. Pinellas had the most and ended up with one of the highest death rates in the state with 13 deaths. Polk County had 12 deaths and Manatee added seven. Hillsborough County now has 400 deaths and 32,996 positive COVID-19 cases.
Management of the pandemic response is now fully in the hands of county commissioners following a vote last week to dissolve the Emergency Policy Group and reabsorb the responsibilities with their current dais. The mask mandate was brought up during the first Board of County Commissioners special emergency management meeting.
“I just want to say that I’m going to be voting against the face mask mandate,” Commissioner Stacy White said. “I just want to put some reasons why on the record. I think it’s too heavy-handed to mandate this from the government level and to make the penalties so strict, I think it’s inefficient as public policy and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. And the ironic thing about these mask mandates is they’ve become so politically charged and so controversial, I’m a firm believer that they could actually be counterproductive. I strongly believe there are folks out there that would ordinarily be inclined to wear a mask based upon recommendations from public health officials, but that are absolutely not going to wear a mask in protest to these strict government mandates.”
The mask mandate was extended until today with a five-to-two vote, with White and Commissioner Ken Hagan voting no. The group will decide this afternoon on whether or not it is extended. This meeting will also hold an interesting discussion as the group will discuss whether it should delete the requirement in paragraph 15 of the order that says it has to be renewed every seven days. If deleted, the order will state the mask mandate will remain as long as the state of emergency is in place unless the group otherwise rescinded or amends the mandate.
The group meets at 1:30 p.m. on Thursdays and its meetings can be streamed on the county’s Facebook and YouTube pages under the BOCC Special Meeting title.
