The coronavirus is advancing unchecked by one of the main outbreaks of the pandemic in the United States, Florida, which experienced 12,624 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday after registering a national record with 15,300 on Sunday, while the controversy continues about the attempts from the White House to discredit his main epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci.
From March 1 to today, there have been 282,435 cases and 4,277 deaths in Florida, including only residents of this state, according to data from its Department of Health.
“Miami is now the epicenter of the virus. What we saw in Wuhan (China) we are seeing now here,” said Monday the infectious diseases specialist Lilian M. Abbo, from the University of Miami Health System, who appeared in a video conference with Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez.
Miami, the great focus
In Miami-Dade, 3,269 new cases and 4 deaths from COVID-19 were registered in the last 24 hours, which means that since March 1, 67,713 people have been infected and 1,143 have died in this South Florida county with about 2 , 8 million inhabitants.
Behind are Broward and Palm Beach, also in southeast Florida, with 31,484 infected and 464 deceased, and 21,806 and 611, respectively.
The situation in Miami contrasts with the city of New York, the former main focus of the pandemic in the country, where in the last 24 hours no fatality by COVID-19 has been documented for the first time since the beginning of the crisis.
This was announced on Monday by the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, who, however, warned in his daily press conference of the increase in the rate of infections among young people from 20 to 29 years old.
De Blasio indicated that 56 people were hospitalized this Sunday for the coronavirus and that 2% of those who had undergone blood tests had tested positive.
The councilman was optimistic about these figures, but insisted that “the disease is far from being beaten” and recalled that there are still many states in the country where the coronavirus continues to spread.
More than 3.3 million cases in the US
In the last month, several states in the south and west of the United States, such as Florida, Arizona, Texas, California and the Carolinas, have experienced a rebound of the pandemic, as they progressed in de-escalation.
As of today, the United States, the country in the world most affected by COVID-19, has registered 3,336,154 cases and 135,400 deaths, with New York, California and Florida at the forefront in the number of infections.
White House Chief Epidemiologist Anthony Fauci explained Monday in a virtual conference with the Stanford School of Medicine that the rebound is because the US has never really had strict confinement.
“We did not have a complete close and that is the reason why we went up. We started to go down and stabilized at a level that was really quite high,” he reflected.
Without seeing the end of the pandemic
In his opinion, to slow down the current progress, it is not necessary to confine oneself again, but to “go back a little” in the de-escalation and to be more careful when complying with the recommendations of the health authorities.
“This is really a serious problem. It is truly historical. We have not even begun to see the end of this. It is still threatening globally,” said Fauci, who stressed that this is “clearly” the most challenging public health crisis that has seen in his career.
Fauci, who is part of the White House COVID-19 working group, has warned on numerous occasions about the seriousness of the pandemic.
Fauci, in the spotlight
This Monday, the president of the country, Donald Trump, assured that he has “a very good relationship with Fauci”, although several of his advisers have criticized him during the past weekend.
“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci, I have had it for a long time, from the beginning,” Trump said in response to questions from journalists during an act at the White House to highlight the positive actions of the police after the wave. of racial protests last month following the death of an African American at the hands of officers.
“I think he’s a very nice person (Fauci),” he continued. “I don’t always agree with him.”
During this weekend several Administration officials have criticized Fauci and that he has changed his vision of things as more of the pandemic became known.
An unidentified government official told CNN television on Saturday that several White House officials “were concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci had been wrong about things.”
The head of the coronavirus test at the national level, Admiral Brett Giroir, pointed out to NBC on Sunday that he respected him, but he said, “Fauci is not 100% correct and he does not necessarily admit it either.”
Giroir assured that Fauci looks at the pandemic from “a very limited point of view of public health.”
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