CDC: Two Florida metro areas are high-risk for COVID transmission

C. A. Bridges, Fort Myers News-Press
·5 min read
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Welcome to today's edition of the Florida Coronavirus Watch Newsletter, which comes out every Monday and Thursday or as urgent news dictates.

Here's what's happening

- With COVID-19 infections surging again and hospitalizations rising, CDC recommends indoor masking in nine Florida counties. People in South Florida — Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties — the Tampa Bay area, and Sarasota, Polk and Alachua counties are now in the high-risk category of the CDC's "Community Level" classification system and should mask up indoors and on public transportation, according to the CDC.

The system tries to estimate if the respiratory disease has a low, medium or high risk of straining healthcare systems in each U.S. county. Much of Central Florida, the Treasure Coast and parts of the Panhandle are at medium risk. The Community Level system is typically a week behind the latest data.

- You may be able to get your youngest children vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of June, experts say. Both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been testing their vaccine for kids under five and will be submitted their complete data to the FDA this week. An FDA advisory committee plans to meet on June 15 to discuss both vaccines for kids as young as 6 months.

If federal agencies follow a timeline similar to previous COVID-19 vaccine authorizations, health experts say parents should be able to vaccinate their little ones by the end of June or earlier.

USA Today has a report on what the data says, for its subscribers.

- Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is asking people with mild or no symptoms to take tests at home and stop clogging their ER. As cases continue to rise, TMH's emergency rooms are filled with people seeking COVID tests, straining the hospital's staff and delaying care to those needing urgent attention, according to a social media post published Thursday by the healthcare facility.

"We urge you – if you have mild or no COVID-19 symptoms, please avoid the ER and use any of the many other testing avenues available in our community," read the post. "We’ve come so far in our battle against COVID-19 and are grateful to now have testing accessible via mail-in and at-home tests, primary care providers, urgent care centers, community testing sites, pharmacies and more."

- State investigators dismiss Rebekah Jones's claims of Florida fudging COVID-19 data. A state investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing in connection with the explosive allegations brought by Florida’s former coronavirus data expert, who had accused top state health officials two years ago of firing her for refusing to manipulate COVID-19 data to support the push to reopen Florida after months of quarantine.

Jones said she plans to sue the state for wrongful dismissal and said in some ways it's a relief to have this over. "I don't think it was ever realistic for them to come out and be like, 'yeah, everything she said is true, we're sorry, my bad.'"

- Remember in 2020 when Florida schools were mandating masks unless you had a medical exemption? In Sarasota County, hundreds of them were signed by just six medical professionals, three of them chiropractors working for the same practice.

According to forms provided to the Herald-Tribune from a resident who made a public records request, 41% of the forms were signed by just six people. The remaining 1,260 forms were signed by 376 different medical professionals. The most common medical practice listed on the forms was a chiropractor, and a large number of them were signed by a dermatologist.

The Herald-Tribune has the breakdown for its subscribers.

COVID info to know

COVID-19 will be an issue for a long time to come, and we think more education is better. Here's what you need to know.

ABOUT COVID

AVOIDING COVID

TESTING

DO YOU HAVE COVID?

What do you want to know about COVID-19? You ask, we'll try to answer

From a reader: "If you recently tested positive and now negative, how long are you immune to catching another case of COVID?"

I say this a lot but... it depends.

When you get COVID-19, your immune system produces antibodies to fight it off and kill off infected cells, and studies have shown that those antibodies can stay in the system and remain effective against infection for six months to a year or more. BUT, those antibodies can be very specific and those studies were done before omicron variants began evolving so quickly. Also, everyone's body is different and your own immune system may not produce the same results. (A woman in Spain tested positive twice only 20 days apart.)

There is simply no real way to tell for sure how long a specific person who had COVID can stop worrying about reinfection. Most experts say you would be highly unlikely to catch it again within 90 days if your vaccinations are up to date and the CDC agrees, saying that if you tested positive and recovered you don't have to quarantine if you've been exposed again for three months.

In my non-medical opinion? I'd weigh my own personal risks before I relied on statistics. If you live in an area that's considered high-risk for transmission, especially if you're particularly medically vulnerable or live with someone who is, maybe mask up and keep your distance anyway to be on the safe side. Or relax but keep a mask handy in case you find yourself somewhere packed in with a lot of people. Nothing is guaranteed, including COVID immunity.

Anything you'd like to know? Ask your questions here.

Thank you for reading! We appreciate you trusting our statewide journalists to keep you safe and informed. If you are encouraged by our work and want to support your local journalists, please consider subscribing. Know someone who would benefit from this newsletter? Forward this email so they can sign up.

Chris' note of the day: Sadly, I am not related to the actor Jeff Bridges in any way I know of. But dad always joked about "cousin Jeff" and we followed and rooted for his career as if he was one of our own.

That made it hard to read about his bout with COVID, which led to five months in the hospital last year with an immune system already weakened from the chemo for his lymphoma. (He's OK now, his cancer is in remission and he's already back to work.) "My dance with COVID makes my cancer look like a piece of cake," he said. Stay strong, cousin Jeff!

Here's what else is happening with the coronavirus in Florida today.

— C. A. Bridges, cbridges@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: CDC: Two Florida metro areas are high-risk for COVID transmission