Delta Variant is Spreading Like Wildfire in Florida

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And our governor does nothing about it. He even banned municipalities from enacting their own mandatory masks rules. I am truly terrified, even thought about leaving my job and start some travel assignments, just to get out of here. 

Almost no one is wearing masks in public establishments. Restaurants and attractions are at full capacity. We had 21,000 new cases of Covid 19 yesterday alone. ?

I am not looking forward to working on a Covid unit again. I know it's about to happen, but inside of me, I don't think I have the strength to go through it again. 

I am at a loss.. 

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On 8/1/2021 at 5:09 AM, NewRN'16 said:

And our governor does nothing about it. He even banned municipalities from enacting their own mandatory masks rules. I am truly terrified, even thought about leaving my job and start some travel assignments, just to get out of here. 

Almost no one is wearing masks in public establishments. Restaurants and attractions are at full capacity. We had 21,000 new cases of Covid 19 yesterday alone. ?

I am not looking forward to working on a Covid unit again. I know it's about to happen, but Inside of me I don't think I have the strength to go though it again. 

I at a loss.. 

I have no idea why someone thought it a good idea to only report cases, hospitalizations and deaths once a week, instead of daily in the middle of a pandemic. 

I enjoyed this article because the author has a sense of humor, but the topic he discusses is serious.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/07/25/florida-leads-us-in-new-covid-19-coronavirus-cases-yet-sticks-with-weekly-not-daily-reporting/

This was also informative:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/07/30/travel-alert-delta-variant-covid-19-transmission/

And this:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/07/29/orlando-area-shattering-covid-records-in-worst-surge-of-pandemic/

I wasn’t able to find the Florida report for the most recent week, but I found one for the previous week:

https://healthdata.gov/Community/COVID-19-State-Profile-Report-Florida/ht94-9tjc

https://docs.Google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://healthdata.gov/api/views/ht94-9tjc/files/c5c74176-a7fd-422e-a5a3-244fcb60c81f

The second link takes you to a whole lot of interesting data for both the state of Florida as well as national data. 

It appears that the proportion of Delta infections out of the total number of infections in Florida was 36.1%, but I expect that will have increased in the most recent week and that it will continue to do so until it is the dominating variant.

What’s clear is that the number of cases, hospitalizations, case positivity rate and deaths appear to be rising quickly in Florida. The week old data puts the death rate per 100,000 in the U.S. at 0.5, but it was 1.7 in Florida for that same week. The largest group of hospitalized patients seems to be those aged 40-69. The group aged 18-39 appears to have almost as many hospitalizations as the group 70 and over. That’s likely a reflection of the fact that vaccination rates are much higher among the elderly.  Normally you would expect many more older people being hospitalized, than younger folks. (You’ll have to check the numbers for yourselves in case I got any of them wrong).

OP, I can certainly understand if you feel emotionally and physically drained and that you could have done without this latest surge.

Take care!

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
On 8/1/2021 at 5:09 AM, NewRN'16 said:

And our governor does nothing about it. He even banned municipalities from enacting their own mandatory masks rules. I am truly terrified, even thought about leaving my job and start some travel assignments, just to get out of here. 

Almost no one is wearing masks in public establishments. Restaurants and attractions are at full capacity. We had 21,000 new cases of Covid 19 yesterday alone. ?

I am not looking forward to working on a Covid unit again. I know it's about to happen, but Inside of me I don't think I have the strength to go though it again. 

I at a loss.. 

Take care of yourself first! You want to preserve your career to last a lifetime...your lifetime.  

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

The unvaccinated will create a new variant that will be impervious to vaccine mediated immunity and then they will proudly crow about how the vaccines didn't work anyway.  If there just weren't so many unvaccinated...

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2 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

The unvaccinated will create a new variant that will be impervious to vaccine mediated immunity and then they will proudly crow about how the vaccines didn't work anyway.  If there just weren't so many unvaccinated...

My gut feeling is this virus will mutate no matter if the host is vaccinated or not. Of course ideally , I wish everyone was vaccinated, but it won't stop the mutations and the need for new vaccines in the future. What really bothers me Is the fact that no one is wearing masks and social distances anymore. With variants emerging and spreading like this, we really should mask up and try and prevent transmissions, instead of putting fun  money over lives. 

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On 8/1/2021 at 8:40 AM, macawake said:

I have no idea why someone thought it a good idea to only report cases, hospitalizations and deaths once a week, instead of daily in the middle of a pandemic. 

Well, now they have started reporting daily . Yesterday the number of new cases was 21,000  in one day , it's not a not weekly toll. 

Florida sets pandemic record with 21,000 new COVID cases in a day https://mol.im/a/9847919 via http://dailym.ai/android

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Newsweek: Florida Breaks Record for COVID Hospitalizations, a Day After Reporting Most New Cases.
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-breaks-record-covid-hospitalizations-day-after-reporting-most-new-cases-1615049

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10 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

The unvaccinated will create a new variant that will be impervious to vaccine mediated immunity and then they will proudly crow about how the vaccines didn't work anyway.  If there just weren't so many unvaccinated...

Curious question for you and whoever might have a good idea about this. I'm vaccinated and I support them, but with so many vaccinated currently contracting covid (I actually just got my positive PCR results today unfortunately), is there not a higher chance of the vaccine-resistant strain coming from people like me (the vaccinated who are infected) rather than the non-vaccinated who are infected? I would think that a strain that mutates in a vaccinated carrier and is passed on would likely be more resilient to the vaccine's defenses, no?

I definitely don't claim expertise in virology, but this seems to make sense to my relatively basic understanding of it. It's the same principle as how antibiotic resistant organisms develop, and why we try to give antibiotics judiciously.

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8 minutes ago, SansNom said:

Curious question for you and whoever might have a good idea about this. I'm vaccinated and I support them, but with so many vaccinated currently contracting covid (I actually just got my positive PCR results today unfortunately), is there not a higher chance of the vaccine-resistant strain coming from people like me (the vaccinated who are infected) rather than the non-vaccinated who are infected? I would think that a strain that mutates in a vaccinated carrier and is passed on would likely be more resilient to the vaccine's defenses, no?

I definitely don't claim expertise in virology, but this seems to make sense to my relatively basic understanding of it. It's the same principle as how antibiotic resistant organisms develop, and why we try to give antibiotics judiciously.

I am so sorry you tested positive  hopefully you won't have as many symptoms, since your body has already antibodies in it's system. But to answer your question, It could mutate and most like it will mutate, no matter if someone is vaccinated or not. . I'm not a virologist either, but that's what viruses do. Now, if you REDUCE the modes of transmission, by mandatory mask mandates and social distancing, reduce visitations in healthcare facilities, etc, you will prevent infections, which will reduce considerably the spread of yet another variant. 

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
11 hours ago, SansNom said:

Curious question for you and whoever might have a good idea about this. I'm vaccinated and I support them, but with so many vaccinated currently contracting covid (I actually just got my positive PCR results today unfortunately), is there not a higher chance of the vaccine-resistant strain coming from people like me (the vaccinated who are infected) rather than the non-vaccinated who are infected? I would think that a strain that mutates in a vaccinated carrier and is passed on would likely be more resilient to the vaccine's defenses, no?

I definitely don't claim expertise in virology, but this seems to make sense to my relatively basic understanding of it. It's the same principle as how antibiotic resistant organisms develop, and why we try to give antibiotics judiciously.

It's certainly a possibility, although the data in Israel suggests that while nasopharangeal viral load may be high on vaccinated but infected individuals, they actually are not associated with many cases of spread...

Vaccines work

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Florida Politics  8/2/2021

Florida Hospital Association’s Mary Mayhew says new COVID-19 surge ‘dramatically different’

Quote

The fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging Florida now is dramatically different in character from previous waves because the delta variant is putting many young people into intensive care, Hospital Association President Mary Mayhew said Monday.

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe“ show, Mayhew said Florida’s hospitals, particularly in Jacksonville and Orlando, are filling fast with much younger COVID-19 patients. She called it a crisis.

“In Jacksonville, in one of our hospitals, their average age now is 42 years old. They have 25-year-olds who are in intensive care, on ventilators,” Mayhew told “Morning Joe” cohost Mika Brzezinski.

Mayhew said Florida has experienced a dramatic increase in COVID-19 hospital admissions over the past 27 days, far faster than what was experienced in 2020.

“You have over 50% of our hospitalizations are between the ages of 25 and 55. It is a rapid increase, not only in hospitalizations, but in the deterioration. Sicker, sicker individuals. Again, pregnant women in our intensive care units,” she added. “This is just dramatically different from what we saw last year.”...

 

 

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

I was talking with a “pro-disease” patient yesterday who lives in Florida the majority of the year; I’ve been his PCP for almost 10 years and we have a good relationship so I wanted to have an open and honest conversation with him about Delta and returning to Florida in four weeks as he has significant comorbidities. 
 

A few things really hit me for this person I’ve known for a long time:

1. He has really been radicalized in the last 24 months. By that I mean that he gets his information only from one source (which tells him to disbelieve every other source and that anything objective is fake), believes that there is a vast international conspiracy, and that he is unable to think rationally because rational thought is most often contradictory to his new doctrine.

2. He believes covid is real and serious (has seen friends die) but also that it’s numbers are exaggerated and that delta is a ploy for the 2022 and 2024 election cycle.

3. He genuinely believes that vaccinations and masks are an assault on his freedom that he is willing to fight and die for.

So I changed tactics and instead talked about vaccines in the light of something that is important to him: taxes and the economy. I showed him the math of the situation in Florida right now: 10,398 people hospitalized with covid at an average cost of $64,500 per hospital stay makes a current cost of $671 million dollars. That money is coming out of our pockets one way or another. He was skeptical about the numbers (even after I told him they came straight from DeSantis) but the argument made more sense to him then a healthcare argument.  

 

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