How is Florida handling COVID-19? Session heads to overtime and Tiffany watch continues
The new coronavirus hit Florida like a thunderbolt last week, as health officials reported two deaths, 18 cases of people who have tested positive — including three in Broward County — and two others from other states whose only recent travel history was to South Florida.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
How is Florida handling the epidemic? The Florida Department of Health has established a hotline to answer questions and is updating its website with numbers: positive cases, deaths, test results and monitoring.
Gov. Ron DeSantis last week did two press conferences but, as we’ve seen at the national level, neither the governor, nor his public health advisers and support staff have been as transparent or as forthcoming as officials in other places.
So, as the crisis enters its third week in Florida, there remain many more questions about how prepared the state is than there are answers. The frightening question: Is there community transmission happening in South Florida?
As of Sunday evening, there were 18 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Florida, two deaths, and 280 people being monitored.
On alert: On Saturday, the governor activated the Emergency Operations Center, which is designed to coordinate information in the face of a disaster. However, there are no daily briefings, and the agency has a long a history of withholding real-time information from the public when governors want to keep their thumb on everything that goes forward.
On Sunday, state officials announced a man who attended a conference in Palm Beach County returned home to Pennsylvania and tested positive for the novel coronavirus. It was the second person who had been to South Florida from another state who tested positive for COVID-19. The first was a New York man who had recently been to Bal Harbour.
What do state officials know of their travel history? What actions are being taken? How many tests are available? Is there more demand for tests than supply? The questions mount.
Cancellations: Also mounting are the canceled events that draw crowds.
Miami-Dade officials announced the cancellation of the Ultra electronic music fest and the Calle Ocho carnival because of fears of the coronavirus. The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States, announced it was canceling its presidential forum set to take place in Orlando this week, curtailing an event that was going to be the first to feature the remaining Democratic frontrunners, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Restrictions: Publix joined other major grocery chains and placed limits on the number of cleaning and sanitizing products customers can buy amid COVID-19 concerns.
Contradictions: Meanwhile, the Regal Princess cruise ship was supposed to dock in Port Everglades Sunday but instead began sailing back and forth off the coast of Florida awaiting tests for the novel coronavirus from two crew members. They were cleared, and the ship docked about 10 p.m. The U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory, warning U.S. citizens that there is an increased risk of infection of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, on cruise ships.
The announcement contradicted statements made Saturday by Vice President Mike Pence, who held a press conference with DeSantis to reassure cruise company CEOs that cruising would continue.
What are legislators doing about it? So, how are legislative leaders handling all of this? Fist-bumps have replaced handshakes. Hand sanitizers are abundant. But there is neither a sense of alarm — nor bold action as legislators wind down the legislative session.
Lawmakers spent the weekend working through the differences in the $91 billion state budget, which includes $25 million in emergency funding for COVID-19 for the Department of Health. But the only talk of the outbreak came when reporters brought it up.
When House Appropriations chairman Travis Cummings, a Fleming Island Republican, was asked Friday whether he had any plans to hold back state spending in the face of an uncertain revenue outlook because of the impact of the coronavirus on the tourism industry, he told us: “I hadn’t considered that.”
Prison risk: Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican who oversees the Department of Corrections budget was asked Sunday if Florida prisons are prepared for the novel coronavirus.
“There’s a true risk in the prison system,’’ he answered, mentioning that resources could be strained because officers and inmates are in close contact and many vulnerable elderly are incarcerated. But he wasn’t worried. “The governor can issue an emergency order and draw down reserve funds through the Department of Health or through the Department of Corrections if he needs,’’ Brandes said.
Perfect storm of vulnerability: The irony is that the nearly 100,000 inmates in Florida’s custody have better access to medical care during the epidemic than about 2.7 million Floridians who are uninsured. The Tampa Bay Times took a good look at the impact on the most vulnerable.
WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
Session skids: This was supposed to be the final week of the legislative session but instead we’re headed into overtime as legislative leaders decided to slow-walk budget negotiations until they got progress on policy priorities.
The progress? Lawmakers came closer to DeSantis’ goal of raising teacher salaries. For the first time in more than a decade, lawmakers also agreed to put all the taxpayer money raised for affordable housing programs into affordable housing programs.
They agreed to give a 3% raise to state employees, advanced a major tax cut package, put $100 million into land preservation, and reached an accord on allowing certain nurses and physician assistants to practice independently of physicians.
There’s a long list of unfinished bills on the agendas this week, but the budget differences are likely to force them to miss their session deadline of Friday, March 13. Bad luck, perhaps, but this is the sixth consecutive year legislators have failed to get their work done within the two-month session. State law requires legislators to wait three days after the budget committees finish their work before they vote on the final spending plan. The final vote is expected to happen Sunday or Monday.
Mountain hideout: After our visit to Tiffany Carr’s $2 million estate home in North Carolina last weekend, the governor’s office and the state attorney general sued the former CEO of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, as well as the coalition and its board. The two lawsuits allege Carr and the organization conspired to defraud the state when Carr padded her paid time off and cashed it in for more than $4 million. They are asking the court to get taxpayer money back from Carr and the agency.
The Florida House of Representatives, which has been taking the lead on the investigation, also got creative with their subpoenas last week. They hired a process server with a sheriff’s escort to try to get Carr to answer her door. And they attempted to serve her through social media posts and emails.
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