Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Florida on August 3
We’re keeping track of the latest news regarding the coronavirus in South Florida and around the state. Check back for updates throughout the day.
Two more teens have died from COVID-19 related complications in Florida, data show
6:30 p.m.: Two more teenagers — a 16-year-old girl from Miami-Dade County and a 17-year-old boy from Manatee County — have died from COVID-related complications in Florida, according to health department data.
Both deaths were added to Florida’s COVID-19 death toll on Monday, according to the Florida Department of Health. The state has now had seven children under age 18 confirmed to have died from the disease.
Neither of the two teens is considered a travel-related case and both had been hospitalized at some point during their illness, health records show.
Read the full story here.
Manatee County faces lawsuit from Palmetto pastor, Florida lawmaker over mask mandate
5:15 p.m.: A Palmetto pastor and a state politician have sued Manatee County government over its mandatory mask mandate. And more than 100 people turned out Monday to support the anti-mask cause.
The Rev. Joel Tillis and state Rep. Anthony Sabatini announced the lawsuit Monday morning outside the Manatee County Courthouse. Sabatini has filed 14 similar lawsuits against mask mandates throughout the state.
The resolution, which county commissioners passed last week in a 4-3 vote, is “a radical infringement of the reasonable and legitimate expectation of privacy and facial autonomy in addition to the medical privacy by forcing them to wear masks for the majority of the day,” according to the lawsuit filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court Monday morning.
Read the full story here.
Officer in Miami-Dade’s jail system dies of COVID as county tries to contain spread
4:30 p.m.: A county correctional officer has died of COVID-19, the first known death of an employee of Miami-Dade’s detention system from the disease caused by the coronavirus.
A spokesman for the county’s Corrections Department confirmed the death but provided no details, including where the officer worked. Miami-Dade’s police union first revealed the death Monday morning.
“It’s the first one we know of,” said Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association. Stahl said the correctional officer was a 48-year-old male but did not provide information about the officer or where he worked.
Read the full story here.
Journalist who covered Trump in Tampa tests positive for COVID
4 p.m.: A member of the press who covered President Donald Trump’s trip to the Tampa Bay area Friday has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the White House Correspondents’ Association.
The association’s president, Zeke Miller, a reporter for the Associated Press, wrote in a message to the group’s members Sunday about the member’s positive test.
“We’ve already reached out to those who were in the pools with this individual, and the White House Medical Unit is conducting additional contact tracing and providing follow-on tests for those in the pools and potentially exposed,” Miller’s message read.
Read the full story here.
COVID-19 testing sites in South Florida reopen as Isaias heads toward the Carolinas
12:50 p.m.: With the threat of Tropical Storm Isaias moving away from Florida and toward the Carolinas, more than a dozen state and federal testing sites reopened at 8 a.m. Monday in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Some county-run popular testing locations remained closed and will reopen gradually Tuesday and Wednesday, officials said.
To see a list of sites that have reopened, click here.
Florida’s known coronavirus total rises past 491,000 as state adds 4,752 cases
11:40 a.m.: Florida’s Department of Health on Monday confirmed 4,752 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s known total to 491,884. There were also 73 Florida resident deaths announced, bringing the statewide resident death toll to 7,157.
Monday’s daily total of newly confirmed cases is the lowest since 3,289 cases were reported on June 23.
Most of the state-run testing sites have been closed since Thursday because of Tropical Storm Isaias. Since test results take at least several days to process, it’s unclear if Monday’s lower total was affected by the state’s storm operations.
Read the full story here.
She caught COVID caring for others. She’ll survive a grueling recovery. Her hands may not
11:10 a.m.: Rosa Felipe’s hands were never still. When she wasn’t treating patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital, she was cooking sausage dumplings for her family, keeping the peace in her corner of Allapattah, adopting stray dogs, knocking on the doors of elderly neighbors to make sure they were taking their medications or collecting clothes to deliver to an impoverished community in the Dominican Republic.
Now Felipe looks at her hands while lying in bed at the hospital where she’s worked for 20 years. She does not recognize them.
“My fingers are black. My hands are rotting,” she said. “They are going to fall off.”
Doctors she used to see in the hallways at Jackson come into a room that used to be occupied by her patients and tell her both hands will probably have to be amputated at the wrist, with a chance they can save a few fingers on her left hand.
Felipe was one of the first healthcare workers tending to the sick on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic to contract COVID-19. That was in early March, just before she was hooked to a ventilator, when she gasped to a friend, “I’m drowning.”
More hand sanitizers recalled as possibly ‘toxic.’ One is sold at Publix and Kroger
9:25 a.m.: Another batch of hand sanitizer recalls came down Friday, all of which were among the recent additions that pushed the FDA’s Do Not Use hand sanitizer list past 100.
And one of those hand sanitizers was sold throughout the Kroger superchain, comprised of Kroger and 14 other chains. At least one Publix still had it on sale Sunday evening, three days after the manufacturer announced the recall.
Read the full story here.
CATCH UP TO START THE DAY
9:20 a.m.: Here are the coronavirus headlines to catch you up on what’s happening around South Florida and the state as Monday begins.
▪ Florida reports 7,104 new COVID-19 cases. Miami-Dade also sees a decrease in new cases
▪ Florida prison boss, deputy test positive for COVID after visiting virus-ridden site
▪ For elevator shove, Florida man claimed self-defense against COVID-19. He beat the charge
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 9:29 AM with the headline "Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Florida on August 3."
