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Current as of July 27, 2020, at 7:00 a.m.
COVID-19 Testing Sites in Florida
  • Drive-Thru Testing sites available are listed by county. Each walk up site can test up to 200 individuals per day. Access the list here.

Safe. Smart. Step-by-Step.

The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity is giving daily updates on Florida’s Reemployment Assistance program: View DEO Dashboard Here .

Florida Department of Health COVID Dashboard: Access dashboard here .

Graphs, Charts, and Real-time Tracking of COVID-19

Data Sources

Data Sources on Social Media

Other Resources


Current Statistics

  • Fatality rate in Florida - 1.4%
  • Covid fatality rate in FL by age group:
  • 15-24 years old - .02% (less than 1%) 
  • 25-34 years old - .05% (less than 1%) 
  • 35-44 years old - .18% (less than 1%) 
  • 45-54 years old - .37% (less than 1%) 
  • 55-64 years old - 1.1%
  • 65-74 years old - 3.9%
  • 75 and up - 13.0%
  • Seasonal influenza mortality rate in the US (2017 CDC) 18-49 yo - .02%

  • Median age of new Covid cases - 40 years old
  • Emergency department visits w/ COVID-like illness - 42% decrease
  • ICU beds available in Florida - 19%
  • Hospital beds available in Florida - 25%

Vaccine Tracking

Last updated: July 24, 2020 8:27 AM PST

199
vaccines are in development.

19
are now in clinical testing.

Dealing with the virus and having an economy aren’t incompatible, but the U.S. needs a U.S. approach.

It will be chastening to many that the latest outbreak is not a red-blue phenomenon. California, Florida and Texas are experiencing spikes. They have in common not political complexion but the fact that they are among the most heavily traveled states, nationally and internationally. After New York, Florida and California are Nos. 2 and 3 in international visitors. Texas is No. 6 but this leaves out a huge number of undocumented visitors whom the U.S. government has never been able to quantify.

One comorbidity shouldn’t be allowed to complicate our reaction: Don’t let how you feel about Donald Trump blind you to  growing evidence  that the virus strain that rose in China and predominates in East Asia is substantially less virulent than the strain that was rampant in Northern Italy and now dominates in the U.S.

We also shouldn’t let labels confuse our understanding. The virus was never “locked down.” Certain social and business gatherings were banned but human beings were as free as ever to spread the disease. Evidence shows Americans were withdrawing from social interactions before stay-at-home orders were issued. Those orders were lifted not because the virus disappeared but because politicians knew people were not going to continue to obey them.

This column has been nearly alone in mentioning the advice that graced a CDC webpage for months and then mysteriously disappeared, warning that most Americans would eventually be exposed to the virus. The “open too soon” talk is nonsense in light of a disease that was guaranteed still to be circulating whenever a restive humanity began to interact again. When and how its circulation manifests in dramatic increases in local health-care demand could use some sorting out, but here’s betting a relatively small subset of social activities plays a big role.

Western countries, for the most part, started out with standard flu pandemic plans: Keep the hospitals open. Expect the disease to work its way through a population. After Wuhan, the world’s media implicitly imbibed the idea that the plan should be more ambitious: Crush transmission to zero, then use intrusive testing and isolation to nip all outbreaks in the bud until widespread vaccination is possible.

This has become the standard by which government responses are universally critiqued, as if culture, geography and politics are the same everywhere for Covid purposes. It’s the approach China has taken, but China’s outcome is not yet written.

We don’t know what’s going on in its hospitals. Subjects who test positive but don’t show symptoms are reportedly not counted as cases. China continues to impose draconian surveillance and controls on its people of the sort Western governments couldn’t. At the same time, China has long been playing  catch-up with the West  in terms of critical-care capability. Beijing can suppress its people in a way the U.S. can’t; it can’t care for them the way the U.S. can. Every country is different.

New York City, with three million fewer residents than Wuhan, did not fold under a case load that, by official statistics, was four times as high as Wuhan’s, and a death tally nearly six times as high. Yes, Chinese statistics can’t be trusted, and few countries anywhere are capturing the true spread of infection. But you can understand why Chinese leaders would opt for brutal suppression of a disease for which they would be unable to offer their people decent care as it peeled through 40 cities larger than Chicago.

Unfortunately China’s Whac-A-Mole challenge may only accelerate as Covid-19 becomes entrenched in countries with which China does business. A growing share of  China’s domestic cases  reportedly consist of the possibly more virulent “G” strain reimported from abroad. A vaccine may not be available soon; it may be only partially effective. China may never be able to stop fighting the virus with heavy-handed measures.

In America, the question is moot. If Americans aren’t happy with today’s infection and hospitalization rates, they will have to stop sharing the disease. If politicians want to help, how about providing accurate, detailed advice about how the virus is spread and by whom (which means fast, readily available testing). Masks are no more a miracle cure than lockdowns were. If you need a mask for an activity, think of not engaging in that activity.

How important is viral load in disease severity? How important are aerosols vs. droplets? Has exposure to closely or distantly related coronaviruses conferred a degree of immunity on lucky populations (possibly explaining the  mild experiences  of certain countries)?

Much remains unknown, but having an economy and dealing with a respiratory infection that, in most cases, is not life threatening can’t be allowed to become incompatible. Americans, once they’ve tried every way of ducking a problem, usually are good at solving it.


One model attempting to plot the rate of COVID-19 infections lists Florida as one of twelve states currently experiencing a decline in transmissions.

Florida’s Rt, or effective reproduction number, is 0.99 according to to  rt.live , meaning the virus’ spread is slowing. The model confirmed that rate in a Sunday afternoon update.

Of those dozen states, Florida ranked 11th.

Founders of Instagram  created rt.live , putting their data talents into online pandemic tracking using data from data from  COVIDTracking.com .

At the start of June, when cases skyrocketed from 1,000 diagnoses per day to ten times that, Florida’s Rt was 1.36, one of the worst in the nation. By the end of the month, that metric had fallen to 1.oo. That rate fell to 0.98 in the first week of July but is currently 0.99.

Florida also had an Rt below 1.00 between March 28 and May 6, spanning of the safer-at-home order.

The pandemic is slowing the fastest in Maine, which has an RT of 0.87. Washington, D.C., and 34 states have a growing number of new infections, the worst of which is Missouri with an Rt of 1.26. Delaware, Nevada, New York and Wisconsin all have Rts of 1.00.

Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ incoming Communications Director Fred Piccolo tweeted the snapshot of Florida’s curve Sunday, ahead of him officially joining the Governor’s Office Monday.

But the rate of infections does not account for how many infections the state has. Florida has the fourth-worst cases per capita throughout the pandemic, and counted  9,344 new infections  between Saturday and Sunday mornings.

However, DeSantis says Florida’s testing has outpaced other states, and states like New York that saw early outbreaks likely missed thousands of infections because testing supplies were limited at the time.

separate model  designed by Youyang Gu, and independent data scientist and MIT graduate, that uses machine learning lists Florida’s current Rt as 0.92 after peaking at 1.42. Both models attempt to correct for daily volume of tests.

In Florida, nearly 100,000 people are tested daily for COVID-19.

It’s easy to forget now but there was a time early on in the pandemic when the price of gold was in freefall.

It was a curious thing, what with the virus sparking a collapse in the global economy, and it would prove in time to be one of the great head-fakes in the recent history of financial markets. For the pandemic of 2020 would soon show itself to be the driving force behind one of the most ferocious rallies the gold market has ever seen. At the close of trading in New York on Friday, bullion had spiraled to $1,902.02 an ounce, some 30% higher than the low it hit in March and just 1% off a record high set back in 2011.

The virus has unleashed a torrent of forces that are conspiring to fuel relentless demand for the perceived safety from turmoil that gold provides. There’s the fear of further government-ordered lockdowns; and politicians’ decision to push through unprecedented stimulus packages; and central bankers’ decision to print money faster than they ever have before to finance that spending; and the plunge in inflation-adjusted bond yields into negative territory in the U.S.; and the dollar’s sudden decline against the euro and yen.

All these things, when taken together, have even triggered concern in some financial circles that stagflation -- a rare combination of sluggish growth and rising inflation that erodes the value of fixed-income investments -- could take hold across parts of the developed world.

In the U.S., where the virus is still raging and the economic recovery is stalling, this debate is growing louder. Investor expectations for annual inflation over the next decade, as measured by a bond-market metric known as breakevens, have moved higher the past four months after plunging in March. On Friday, they hit 1.5%. And while that remains below pre-pandemic levels and below the Federal Reserve’s own 2% target, it is almost a full percentage point higher than the 0.59% yield that benchmark 10-year Treasury bonds pay.

The main driver behind gold’s latest rally “has been real rates that continue to plummet and don’t show signs of easing anytime soon,” Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., said by phone. Gold is also drawing investors “concerned that stagflation will win out and will likely warrant even further accommodation from the Fed.”

U.S. bond markets have been a driving force behind the rush to gold, which is serving as an attractive hedge as yields on Treasuries that strip out the effects of inflation fall below zero. Investors are looking for safe havens that won’t lose value...

Analysts have been predicting huge upside for gold for several months. In April, Bank of America Corp. raised its 18-month gold-price target to $3,000 an ounce.

“The global pandemic is providing a sustained boost to gold,” Francisco Blanch, BofA’s head of commodities and derivatives research, said Friday, citing impacts including falling real rates, growing inequality and declining productivity. “Moreover, as China’s GDP quickly converges to U.S. levels helped by the widening gap in Covid-19 cases, a tectonic geopolitical shift could unfold, further supporting the case for our $3,000 target over the next 18 months..."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was on hand at the White House on Friday as President Donald Trump signed four executive orders designed to reduce prescription-drug prices, including one aimed at allowing drug importation from Canada and other countries.

In addition to DeSantis, Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., were also at the White House signing event.

The Florida Legislature in 2019 passed a law aimed at importing cheaper drugs from Canada, but it has not been implemented because it also required federal approval, including the passage of federal rules. The first draft of those rules was released a year ago.

In a note to House members Friday evening, Oliva called the executive orders “historic” and said one was inspired by the Florida law.

“Never in my time — nor in recent memory — has a piece of our legislation led to such prominent action by a sitting president,” Oliva wrote.

It was not clear, however, how the executive orders, which were not immediately released, would speed up the federal approval process for the Florida program…

DeSantis and Trump in the past have touted the potential importation of drugs from Canada. Trump praised the idea during a stop in October 2019 in The Villages, a massive Central Florida retirement community.

Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, spearheaded efforts to pass the drug-importation bill in the Legislature last year, and lawmakers followed up this year by setting aside $10.3 million in the budget to help carry out the importation program.

Were the Founding Fathers heroes or villains?

While this dichotomy perhaps oversimplifies our attitude toward the founding generation, one would imagine that most Americans think that their country’s origin is fundamentally good.

Few political movements in the history of the United States have truly distanced themselves from the founding. Many have tried to twist and distort the founding, but almost all successful ones have at least sought to hitch their wagons to 1776.

Until now.

A growing number of young Americans are not only ambivalent, but are outright hostile, toward America’s national origin.

A recent  Fox News poll  illustrated this disturbing trend.

Poll respondents overwhelmingly said that the Founders were “heroes” as opposed to villains.

However, when one breaks down the numbers by age, one notices a radical, generational shift in views.
As Josh Kraushaar, a columnist for the National Journal, noted on Twitter, Americans over 45 almost universally see the Founders as heroes, and only a tiny number see them as villains.

However, nearly the same number of Americans under 45, according to the poll, see the Founders as villains as opposed to heroes.

If one wonders why there is such a ferocious effort to  tear down statues  and erase America’s past, that explains the phenomenon to a large extent.

Many  young Americans have been marinated in a stew of a hostile version of America’s past  based on the teachings of the late radical historian Howard Zinn and many others of the new left. Either that or they  simply know nothing  at all as civics knowledge collapses.

The result is a militant wing of young people hellbent on putting an end to America and the West.

On the other hand, you have a shrinking number of young Americans who can even articulate what it is they are trying to conserve in America. They now feel overwhelmed and pressured to go along with a ruthless cultural revolution that tolerates no dissent.

In a battle between zealots and the perhaps larger numbers of uniformed or uncommitted, bet on the zealots.

The summer of 2020, if anything, has exposed how late in the game this culture war is. These really are the times that try men’s souls.

However, as dark and foreboding as this moment may seem to patriots who still cling to the idea that America is a flawed, but ultimately great and exceptional country, it at least provides clarity.

The war on history, as I explained in my book “ The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past ,” is not about any particular figure or statue. Nor is it about simply correcting a past wrong to build a stronger future.

No, it’s about toppling the foundation of this country. It’s about sweeping away America’s past, both its institutions and culture, in an effort to begin again at year zero.

In his  famed first inaugural address  in 1801, Thomas Jefferson spoke to a nation deeply divided, where one political “party”—or “faction,” really—replaced another.

Jefferson calmed the country by noting that “we are all republicans, we are all federalists,” the two political sides of that time.
He said that while there were serious disagreements over the issues of the day, most Americans were committed to republican self-government, the principles of 1776.

Now, Jefferson may have harbored deep suspicions that his opponents were closet monarchists, but his statement hit the mark. Certainly, he was right that “every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle,” and that attachment to the principles of the founding remained strong, no matter how they were interpreted.

Can we say that today?

On this issue, like no other, a line must be drawn.

America is more diverse today—by ethnicity, race, and religion—than it has ever been. If the once nearly universal attachment to our history and ideals—the very reason for America’s being—comes undone, it will be impossible to hold onto the concept of e pluribus unum, or “out of many, one.”

Our history, the good and the bad, binds us together. Our attachment to the founding gives us unity of purpose, despite the country’s remarkable diversity.

Not only that, but the ideas attached to that founding, even if not always adhered to, have given us the remarkable ability to correct wrongs and stand strong in the face of great evils at home and abroad.

So, it is essential right now for Americans to stand fast in the face of this looming revolution that would ultimately deliver us into tyranny. We need to better prepare and inform ourselves so that we may explain our reason for being in debates with our fellow citizens as long as debate and dissent are still allowed and protected.

For those looking for better ways to defend the founding, an excellent source of material is a new book, “ America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding ” by Robert R. Reilly.

Reilly deftly defends the very essence of what America was built on from critics on the left who are dedicated to its destruction, and even from some on the right who are misguided in thinking that the  radicalism of today stems from 1776 .

He asks rhetorically in his introduction whether “America was founded on basic principles that are true and just—ones that we can unqualifiedly support—or whether the republic was based on ideas that are false and unavoidably lead to corporate and individual evil.”

The left increasingly answers that question with “no.” Those who disagree are quickly being canceled.

Following the flawed logic and history of The New York Times’ so-called 1619 Project, they ultimately conclude that America’s essence is slavery and white supremacy. To be a good person—an “anti-racist” as they define it—is to be against America.

Is that what most Americans now believe? If so, and if that trend continues, there will ultimately be no America and certainly no Constitution to fall back on.

Reilly counters that line of thought and provides a superb foundation for arguing why America is an inherently good and successful country, a culmination of the best ideas in Western thought materialized in a society most capable of embracing them.

He concludes that America has gone astray because it has “not remained true to the Founding.”

“The Founding is not the problem; it’s the solution,” Reilly wrote. “We had best return to its principles before it’s too late.”

That’s what Americans need right now.

Americans must recommit to understanding our history and origins. And more than that, we must be brave and willing to stand up for it in the face of powerful cultural headwinds.

Abraham Lincoln once said that “right makes might,” that the justice and truth of a cause gives it power.
The  mobs burning our cities  are attempting to impose their will on Americans by force as many of our leaders shamefully stand by and watch, or even join in the anarchy.

But these people still do not speak for the majority, nor do they provide a healthy way to make America a stronger or more just society.

They stand for  antipathy, destruction, and mobocracy , not hope or unity or a better future.

Again, this must be a moment of clarity. Will Americans still embrace that light in the darkness in the face of critics at home and the challenge of a rising superpower across the Pacific, or will we fade into the long night of history as our country and the world plunges into a new dark age?
These are not the days for sunshine patriots.

We have hard work and troubled times ahead.

Many will shrink in the face of ruthless “woke” mobs, empowered by the steady drumbeat of support coming from America’s elite cultural institutions.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, as a great American pamphleteer once said.

What we do and what we say now may very well determine whether 1776, and the great country we’ve inherited, stands or falls.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal editorial board sent out ‘“ A Note to Readers”  vowing not to give in to cancel culture.  

Earlier this week over 280 journalists, editors, and other employees at the Journal and their parent company Dow Jones criticized the Journal’s opinion section in a  leaked letter  to the Journal’s publisher Almar Latour, calling for better labeling of opinion pieces and stronger fact-checking of op-eds, specifically attacking the publication of  a recent essay  by Vice President Mike Pence on the coronavirus.

“Opinion’s lack of fact-checking and transparency, and its apparent disregard for evidence, undermine our readers’ trust and our ability to gain credibility with sources,” the staff’s letter read, while also demanding more coverage of race and inequality.

The “Note to Readers” said that people were responding to the leaked letter concerned that the Journal will move to change their “principles and content,” but the authors reassured readers the Journal “… won’t respond in kind to the letter signers”.  

“… the opinion pages will continue to publish contributors who speak their minds within the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse. And these columns will continue to promote the principles of free people and free markets, which are more important than ever in what is a culture of growing progressive conformity and intolerance.”

The Journal explained, “It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution.” 

“But we are not the  New York Times, ” the editorial board wrote, taking a jab at their competitor and alluding to recent events at the Times, like the  resignation  of the editorial page editor after widespread criticism of an op-ed by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton and the very public resignation of New York Times editor  Bari Weiss , who experienced harassment and bigotry at the Times for her centrist views. 

The Journal defended their opinion page and its commitment to publishing a diversity of views writing, “Most Journal reporters attempt to cover the news fairly and down the middle, and our opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media.”