Florida “in the midst of the resurgence of COVID-19,” the White House task force says

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The latest report sent to Florida by the White House coronavirus working group sends a clear and gloomy message:

“Florida is in the midst of a resurgence of COVID-19, which will cause significant deaths for many weeks and stress the hospital system’s staffing,” the Jan. 10 report says.

The state is in the dreaded red zone by cases, and the task force says Florida’s 101 new cases per 100,000 population are the eleventh highest in the country.

Florida’s positivity rate of 10.1% is also in the red zone, ranking 26th in the country, according to the report.

It is noteworthy that Miami-Dade and Broward counties have recorded the highest number of new cases in the last three weeks (they are also the most populous counties).

“Almost all metropolitan areas of more than 500,000 people are in full resurgence, and aggressive action must meet this growing community outreach in our large subways,” says the report, which aims to advise states on how to combat virus, with the guidance of some of the country’s leading infectious disease experts. “The methods that continued to improve after Thanksgiving are now destabilizing.”

The task force urges Florida leaders to emphasize the use of masks and strict social distancing, especially when virus variants are reported.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has verified at least 22 cases of COVID-19 caused by variants in Florida of the 76 reported nationwide.

“Aggressive mitigation should be used to match a more aggressive virus, going beyond what worked in the summer to more layered mitigation; without the uniform implementation of effective masking (two or three layers and well-adjusted) and strict physical distancing, epidemics could quickly worsen as more transmissible variants spread and become predominant, ”the report says.

The White House working group also calls for “proactive testing of children under 40 to prevent asymptomatic silent spread to members of their household.”

Earlier this week, Florida became the third state to pass 1.5 million cases of COVID-19.

Below is a copy of the pages of the Florida report: