Will COVID surge before the election in Florida? ‘Everybody wants to know the answer’
Political campaigns in the nation’s preeminent battleground state are watching two sets of numbers as Election Day approaches: ballot returns and cases of the novel coronavirus.
As Floridians begin voting in person Monday — and a flurry of political rallies, sporting events and school re-openings bring scores of people together in one of the worst-hit states by the pandemic — both epidemiologists and candidates are bracing for the possibility of a pre-Election Day surge.
“Everybody wants to know the answer to that question: Are we going to see changes in key COVID-19 metrics prior to the election that could influence voting one way or the other? That really remains a big question mark,” said Jason Salemi, a University of South Florida associate professor of epidemiology who monitors state and federal COVID-19 data. “You’d be unrealistically disconnected not to be paying close attention with all the things that have transpired of late.”
The state of the pandemic has significant personal consequences for the people of Florida, about 16,000 of whom have died from COVID-19. That’s about 73 deaths per 100,000 people, the 11th-worst, per-capita death rate in the country, according to the COVID Tracking Project. It also has practical and political implications for voters and campaigns.
An increase in cases could influence whether voters cast mail ballots or vote in person — or at all. The growing numbers of campaign workers canvassing neighborhoods incur greater or diminished risk depending on the prevalence of the coronavirus. And politicians’ messaging and strategy could be affected by the status of a virus that has upended Florida’s tourist-driven economy and affected the health of tens of thousands of families.
“We’re still monitoring the pandemic consistently,” said Republican Miami state Rep. Daniel Perez, in line to be future Florida House Speaker in four years. “Just because we’re in campaign season doesn’t mean we can take our eyes off it. It’s very real. There are still people affected by it on a daily basis.”
In the race for president — and Florida potentially in a deciding role — the novel coronavirus remains arguably the most prominent issue on the trail for President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who have taken drastically different approaches when discussing how to handle the crisis.
Biden has slammed Trump for doing too little to contain the virus or unify the country behind a plan to reduce transmission. Carlie Waibel, a Florida spokeswoman for the former vice president, told the Miami Herald the state’s COVID-19 issues “have been largely the result of failed leadership from both” Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in late September forced all local jurisdictions to allow restaurants and bars to reopen at half-capacity and has pushed public schools to return to class.
Trump, meanwhile, has talked about the pandemic — which has killed at least 217,000 people in the U.S. alone — almost as if it were in the past, and has made social distancing and masks sound like an inconvenience. “I believe we’re rounding the corner,” Trump said Thursday during an NBC town hall in Miami, even though cases are on the rise again across the country.
The president, who tested positive for COVID-19 early this month, held two packed rallies in Florida last week after doctors said he was no longer contagious. His first was a crowded, mask-optional event in Sanford, during which DeSantis dismissed efforts to slow transmission of the virus by closing businesses and schools as counter-productive.
“We’re not going to let them shut our schools. We’re not going to let them close our businesses,” DeSantis said of Democrats. “We’re not going to let them shut down this country.”
The number of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations statewide remain down from July, when Florida’s outbreak hit its peak. But numbers have begun to climb again since the week DeSantis removed Florida’s coronavirus restrictions. The 3,449 cases reported Friday by the Florida Department of Health is the highest total for a single day since mid-September.
“You can’t say Florida is in any way out of the woods or at no risk for an increase in infections,” said Roger Shapiro, an associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
So far, a fall coronavirus resurgence that Miami-Dade county officials and hospital leaders feared hasn’t materialized, though testing demand has begun to tick-up, a potential indicator of a forthcoming rise in cases.
Hospitalizations, the most reliable metric of virus transmission, remain flat in South Florida, although the region continues to add several hundred new cases per day, higher than the baseline generally recommended by public health officials.
Tom Inglesby, an infectious disease and pandemic expert at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, said Miami’s case and hospital numbers appeared to be stable. But he was concerned about the relaxing of coronavirus restrictions by DeSantis — and noted the impacts may still be felt.
“It’s too soon to say what’s going to happen three weeks from now, but if it stays where it is today, that’s certainly a better place than we’ve seen in the past,” Inglesby said.
Some strategists who spoke to the Miami Herald believe voters’ sentiments on COVID-19 are set at this point in the election, regardless of what happens with the pandemic before Election Day. But whether surging, fading or plateauing, the pandemic remains a constant of the election as campaigns work to convince voters to support their candidates and go out to vote.
Waibel, the Biden campaign spokeswoman, said the former vice president’s team has worked to inform voters about their voting options, “whether it be voting by mail or if you do plan to vote in person, providing guidance on best practices to stay safe.”
Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Steve Simeonidis said field workers are also taking a number of precautions, though he questioned whether Republicans are doing the same.
“I think one party has one eye on the campaign and one eye on the pandemic,” he said, referring to Democrats. “I think the other party has forgotten that there’s a pandemic and they’re acting as such.”
Not so, said Emma Vaughn, a Trump campaign spokeswoman in Florida. Vaughn said Trump’s campaign is watching the pandemic, and will outwork Democrats, safely.
“Democrats have admitted that our ground game keeps them up at night and are using any tactic necessary to deter the momentum and enthusiasm we’ve found in Florida,” said said. “Trump Victory has and continues to comply with local, state, and federal guidelines as we are safely campaigning in-person.”
This story was originally published October 17, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
