You didn’t wear a damn mask — and we’re back to record COVID infections in Florida | Opinion
You blew it, Florida.
Too many of you didn’t wear a mask — and now we’re all paying for it.
Too many rushed to embrace an opening that came without enforcement of safety measures.
Too many of you listened to the dismissive, untruthful rants of the president and the mixed messaging of the governor and mayors who place economy before health.
You let your guard down upon hearing the word “reopening,” and again this week, the state recorded the highest single-day total of coronavirus cases since this nightmarish pandemic began: 5,508 on Wednesday, 5,004 on Thursday — and counting.
As of this writing, Florida had 114,018 confirmed cases of COVID-19, one of 21 states in the nation to hit worrisome new records after reopenings that many had warned were premature and overly optimistic.
It’s déjà vu to March all over again.
Long lines for COVID testing
The all-too-familiar sight of car caravans lined up for hours at testing sites has become a thing again in hot spots like Miami-Dade, the waiting all the worse in the heat of summer.
Publix and Aldi grocery stores just confirmed to The Herald 13 more locations where employees tested positive for the coronavirus in South Florida.
I saw that one coming on the first week of reopening when at one Publix I visited employees began acting as if that meant relaxed safety precautions.
One employee took out a pot of soup without gloves. The seafood dispenser couldn’t be bothered to put on two gloves to handle my fish order. The stock clerk previously enforcing the one-way rule stopped reminding people they were going the wrong way.
People that clueless about contamination aren’t mindful in their private lives, either.
And so, here we are.
Florida’s new precarious state of coronavirus infections — at “exponential growth,” public health officials call the surge — was so predictable.
When Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez was peddling the county’s reopening early in May, he gloated on a Sunday morning news show: “I’m really proud of the way people in Miami-Dade County have followed the rules.”
I couldn’t help but talk back to my TV: You don’t get around town much, do you, mayor?
You only need to step out the door to see why we have a new surge of coronavirus infections, both in South Florida and upstate, where so many people were never believers in wearing a mask to begin with.
Even with stay-at-home orders in place, I saw groups of men congregating in the mornings, no masks, talking right next to each other at the famous ventanitas where people gather for their doses of Cuban coffee, or outside the bagel shop, or at a workplace parking lot.
The family parties — and other kinds too, like a Cinco de Mayo celebration in my area — never really stopped.
On a recent visit to Jacksonville, I was shocked to be the only one wearing a mask at the busy Arboretum & Gardens, despite guidelines advising: “Masks and face covering are strongly recommended for everyone over age two.”
On a visit to Orlando, I wasn’t shocked at the mask-wearing divide falling along partisan lines — with half of the people wearing them at stores, the other half refusing to make a political statement, and no one but me wearing one during neighborhood walks.
Some parts of Miami are like that, too.
At the Turnpike plazas where I stopped, I saw people pumping gas without gloves and driving away without even making an effort to use the hand sanitizer by the door.
No, we didn’t learn the lessons the first time around, so here’s coronavirus affirming its presence in our lives — as superintendents and college presidents are telling us the kids are going back to school in two months.
Scary.
And you know what they say about the thing you didn’t learn coming back around to bite you, you know where.
You didn’t wear a damn mask and immunology and infectious disease experts are saying the surge of new cases means that Florida is entering a new phase in the pandemic — and it’s like the first phase.
Chilling COVID-19 estimate
So I ask, what’s going to be the unacceptable number at which time we make mask-wearing mandatory in Florida?
We’re already seeing chilling daily numbers of cases. Then, take into account what Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control, said Thursday about the true total number of infections: “Our best estimate right now is that for every case that’s reported, there actually are 10 other infections.”
That would be 1,140,180 in Florida and at least 23 million in the United States.
Older people dying didn’t move you.
An entire family wiped out in Miami-Dade didn’t move you.
Some of you dismissed it as just a singular tragedy.
If the prospect of more than a million people in our state already infected with a deadly disease doesn’t shock you, Floridian, into wearing a mask every time you step out the door, nothing ever will.
Be responsible, if not for you, then for the sake of the parents facing the prospect of having to send their children to school in the middle of a pandemic far from being under control.
Model the behavior of health experts, not of political fools.
Wear the damn mask.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 6:29 PM.
