The Department of Health in Okaloosa County has a director that’s unafraid to speak truth.
The Daily News reports that Okaloosa DOH director Dr. Karen Chapman told county officials, “Today, many family members are suffering the loss of a loved one due to COVID-19. Every one of these deaths was preventable.â€
Chapman’s report to county officials followed a week in which 10 deaths raised Okaloosa County COVID-19 fatality total to 30.
Escambia County had 17 deaths last week. Yesterday, the death toll reached 101. Escambia County officials appear to be unconcerned, and DOH Escambia has been silent.
Escambia County has 8,262 COVID cases, Okaloosa 3,106.
Dr. Chapman estimated “80 to 90 percent†of the population needs to get behind the concept of wearing a mask for the strategy to be successful.
“Cloth face coverings or masks should be worn in all public spaces, especially when maintaining physical distancing is difficult,†she said. “Failure of most of the population to follow these two critical mitigation measures is significantly contributing to the spread of COVID-19 in Okaloosa County.”
When the  Escambia County Commission meets tomorrow, will the new DOH Escambia director have the courage to speak as boldly? Lumon May is the only county commissioner that has consistently come out for a mandatory face mask order.
We have and DOH has refused to supply any contact tracing data. But we will continue to try. We had a break-through last week when we got Medical Examiner spreadsheet listing names of those who have died due to COVID.
Many simply treat this problem as POLITICAL.
It should be treated as MEDICAL.
You see arguments and diversions both ways with enough spin to choke a horse.
Unless or until we treat Covid-19 as MEDICAL and follow the guidelines we will see no improvement.
A major improvement could be seen if medical professionals handled this problem instead of politicians who only think of themselves with the full support of their voter base.
The FDOH county director made the statement. Ask her to provide the scientific data on which it was based. It should be public record.
I would love to see the contact tracing on all the cases and deaths. The only people who have seen it are the DOH directors – one of which made this statement. Until we all get to see the data, we are stuck with their statements and reports produced by DOH.
Agree with your premise Chuck, for her to make that definitive of a statement she should be able to provide scientific data to prove that these deaths could have somehow have been prevented. Also, it has been documented that some of these ‘Covid deaths’ have included people who have died from other causes, but have also tested positive for the virus.
The logic was that you have to take those extreme measures to completely prevent something so I was relating taking guns and stopping cars to complete isolation. The way the quote and story read it suggests that simply wearing masks would have prevented all those deaths when I don’t believe that can be determined because we cannot trace where everyone contracts the virus. As I said I wasn’t arguing that wearing masks doesn’t mitigate the spread I was simply suggesting that her statement was, in my opinion, too bold and made her less credible.
Ten deaths in a week in Okaloosa, seventeen deaths in Escambia happened because of COVID-19. The people would not have died last week if they had not contracted the virus – so they could have been prevented if they didn’t get infected.
We didn’t have 27 deaths because of gun violence or car accidents last week. There is no simple solution to prevent the behavior that causes gun deaths or car accidents – so I fail to follow the logic of your analogies.
Dr. Chapman didn’t recommend complete isolation as the solution. However, face masks do mitigate the spread.
Sorry but that is a statement that cannot be tied to simply requiring everyone to wear masks. We can look at gun violence and say all those deaths could be prevented (by taking all guns) or all auto accidents could be prevented (stop driving cars). When you cannot even trace where or how someone contracts this you cannot make this broad of a statement. Yes we could have prevented all these deaths if everyone never left their house and lived off whatever food they had and didn’t come in contact with anyone else. Honestly it makes her less credible than more in my opinion. I am not suggesting that wearing masks won’t help but it is foolish to try and say that all deaths will stop if everyone wears masks.