The website 247wallst.com has named Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent the city were the COVID-19 virus is growing the fastest in Florida.
“In the Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent metropolitan area, there were an average of 90.1 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents in the week ending Jan. 19 — the fastest case growth of any city in Florida. The metro area’s most recent case growth rate is a decrease from the week prior, when there were an average of 101 daily new cases per 100,000 residents.”
Tallahassee came in second with an average of 78.5 new daily cases per 100,000 residents.
Read article.
This should be surprising to absolutely nobody.
When the majority of our area’s elected officials for months on end chose loyalty to platform politics and spun a deadly pandemic for an obstructionist base, rather than fulfilling their obligation to public safety and human life, what other outcome could there be?
I wonder whether the true numbers are much better over here on the West Side, or if it’s a matter of less people who are symptomatic bothering to test. I’ve spoken with many people who suspect they had it and saw no reason to confirm whether they had it, because it wasn’t going to change their habits–whether they were being careful, or throwing caution to the wind.
Yesterday during Commissioner’s Forum during the BOCC meeting, Jeff Bergosh spoke in a moving fashion about the death of a dear friend who was a marathon runner with no underlying conditions who died alone on a ventilator over Christmas. He issued a grave warning for anybody who doesn’t take this pandemic seriously, or thinks it’s a hoax. But what good does that do if it results in zero change in policy?
Even worse, every time somebody tries to at least drop a word about how serious this virus is, Chairman Bender has taken to rushing in to assure everybody that the County numbers aren’t as bad as the hospital numbers. As if 17% isn’t all that bad, and as if anybody trusted the data on the County dashboard anyway.
Doug Underhill made a fool out of himself, as usual, outing himself on lying about even watching the long string of meetings he has missed by making a blustering demand for data on recovered cases. Which is as good a marker as any on how checked out of doing his job of commissioner he really is, other than to drop onto Facebook to post disinformation from time to time.
Janice Gilley sat there and said nothing, of course. We are almost a year into this pandemic, and still no mask mandate on County property. So anybody wishing–or having–to speak at a meeting literally has to risk their own lives, and the lives of their loved ones, to enter an unsafe environment where people wearing no mask just come up and get right in your face. I had it happen three times yesterday. In addition, there was a line of 15 people or so waiting to sign up for speaking in the lobby, with zero social distancing requirements. Groups of people standing right next to each other conversing. County staff speaking with the public either maskless or with their masks pulled down.
The message is clear: most of our elected officials care more about pleasing their party and the DeSantis administration than they care about the lives of their constituents.
There is no other excuse for it at this point; there’s nothing else that can be said.
They all recognize this pandemic is real (finally); they know how deadly it is; they know that masks help mitigate the spread; they know the death count isn’t exaggerated, and that it’s not the result of criminal reporting on the part of the hospitals.
They have weighed their options, and they don’t care to try to help it. It’s obviously seen as too risky a move politically, and they have the duck and cover of a big percentage of the populace here being swayed by conspiracy theory.
So let the bodies fall where they will, and let the lifelong chronic health conditions pile up in our community. In case anybody has any illusions that it’s a Lord of the Flies scenario right now in Escambia County.