How safe are Pensacola Beach, downtown Pensacola, Cordova Mall and other parts of Escambia County?
Transparency hasn’t been a priority for Escambia County Administrator Janice Gilley during his first year on the job, especially over the past three months of the COVID pandemic.
The county sends out a COVID-19 update every afternoon. Â The report regurgitates state and other agency press releases and gives the statistics for total cases, deaths and hospitalizations. We also get a hospital report on room and ventilator capacity.
What we don’t get from the county is the number of new cases each day, positivity rate daily and year-to-date, median age of new cases, ICU capacity and breakdown of how many new cases are county residents, non-Florida residents and associated with local nursing homes?
We also don’t get any interpretation of the numbers or details on where the new cases are happening. For example, why are so many under 30 year-olds getting tested? We have been told they believe they’re invincible so what has prompted them to be tested?
Commissioner Doug Underhill has twice set out emails county-wide to voters downplaying the pandemic, and he even tried to argue the crisis peaked in March for Escambia County. The county administration and DOH Escambia never corrected his misleading statements.
The last county press conference on COVID was May 1. Gov. Ron DeSantis holds daily pressers. Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson holds one every Monday.
The commissioners went the entire of month of May without an update from DOH Escambia at its public meetings. DOH Escambia director Dr. John Lanza did give an update to the BCC last week – but the press wasn’t notified that he had been added to the agenda. Lanza attributed the “uptick” in cases to more testing, carpools to Panama City and families.
Since he appeared, Escambia County has add 213 new cases among its residents. Â Testing didn’t increase over the past six days. Neither did carpooling.
Maybe all are fine – which would be great. But the public has a right to know the good or bad news.
How safe are Pensacola Beach, downtown Pensacola, Cordova Mall and other parts of Escambia County? The contact tracing should tell us. We need to know so the public can make informed decisions about their lives – and the SRIA and BCC can make sound decisions on community events like the Blue Angels airshow.
Maybe all are fine – which would be great. But the public has a right to know the good or bad news.
Debbie Stilphen, PIO for DOH Santa Rosa, on Tuesday, June 23  sent out an email encouraging all residents and visitors to wear masks. Nothing from DOH Escambia.  Escambia County’s update yesterday made no mention of masks.
In the past 20 years, the county’s emergency operations center has never given the citizens so little information – hurricanes, oil spill, ice storm, 200-year flood and jail explosion had more transparency.
The difference? Past county administrators didn’t put party politics ahead of the public interest. Taking care of Escambia County citizens took precedent over pleasing the governor’s office.
Past county administrators fought for the people they served.
