Can Florida keep us safe? It’s already overwhelmed early in coronavirus fight | Editorial

Florida is still trying to find its footing on how it will aggressively fight the spread of coronavirus. The fourth case of the disease was announced Thursday.

Already, the fight is overwhelming testing labs, and the federal government hasn’t always been of help, but it seems as if that’s about to change.

On Thursday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said funding is on the way to the state, and Vice President Pence, charged with leading the coronavirus fight, announced he’ll travel to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday to meet with cruise-line leaders to discuss how to curb the virus on passenger ships.

Two cruise ships, one in Japan and another off the coast of California, have been veritable incubators for the deadly virus.

Serious message

We urge Pence to treat this as the potential emergency that it is, especially because President Trump’s messaging has done anything but. Sick people should go to work, he says? This is not a joke, and Pence must convey that.

Rubio said Florida will receive more than $22 million out of the $8.3 billion passed by Congress to deal with the outbreak.

That can’t come a moment too soon. Even though there only has been a smattering of cases in the state, Florida must be prepared.

The money is meant to help state and local public-health agencies subsidize testing and treatment.

The governor’s office said the state doesn’t have enough testing kits to meet the federal guidelines that Pence announced on Wednesday — basically, anyone who a physician suspects might have the novel coronavirus should be tested. That’s a necessary turnaround from the narrow guidelines that left at least one Miami woman untested.

Testing labs clogged

Still, there are only three public labs in Florida, in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville. And they are already at capacity testing only those people who traveled to certain places with the disease, had close contact with someone infected or have severe lower respiratory illness of unknown origin requiring hospitalization.

Florida has tested about 100 people so far; there are 69 pending test results, and 248 people are being monitored, according to the state Department of Health. If the virus truly takes hold, what’s the plan for dealing with an onslaught of tests that will overwhelm already clogged labs — especially if the uninsured flood emergency rooms? Florida needs a plan.

The feds did fumble the ball early. When Florida first received its testing kits for the virus from the federal government last month, the kits were faulty, so all testing samples had to be sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The results came back three to five days later.

Then CDC announced that it was vastly expanding its testing across the country, but we’re still waiting.

Public-health experts have said to stop the spread, local officials should be testing individuals proactively, which, in Washington state, has uncovered cases of suspected community transmission.

They also said federal health officials need to give local physicians and hospitals the ability to test on-site, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier this week that could take months.

Yes, the testing is complicated, but if necessary, shouldn’t on-site labs be expedited?

There needs to be far better coordination between the federal government and the state.

And Florida needs to find its stride on this fight — fast.

This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 7:06 AM.