Flagler County Covid-19 cases are now up to 11, with two of the cases affecting two women–ages 65 and 30–who had recently traveled to New York, the pandemic’s epicenter in the nation. Florida coronavirus cases have surged to 2,900, with 34 deaths, a sharp increase in fatalities in the last few days.
The testing rate in Florida, including Flagler, remains among the lowest in the nation despite this week’s ramped up testing in a few parts of the state. In Flagler, 101 tests had been completed as of 5 p.m. Thursday, with eight positive, according to Department of Health figures. Five of the cases affect Palm Coast residents. One of those cases has resulted in hospitalization. Earlier this week the health department said one of the cases affects a Flagler resident who is being treated in a different county.
Florida as of Thursday had conducted 27,500 tests, but that was still among the lowest rates in the nation, at 128 tests per 100,000 people. It’s the 16th-lowest level of testing in the nation. Arizona is last, at 13 tests per 100,000. New York is leading the nation, at 627 tests per 100,000 people, and 37,258 total cases. As the number of people tested nationally for coronavirus has surged–it doubled from Wednesday to Thursday, to 146,000 tests in a single day–so has the number of people testing positive. That number is expected to cross the 100,000 mark today.
And with infection numbers rising locally and across the state, and indications of less rigorous adherence with social distancing rules, Jonathan Lord, the county’s emergency management chief, hinted that more stringent restrictions could be ahead.
“If people continue to not follow” social distancing rules, he said, “then we will see much stronger restrictions coming down from the state or even potentially here locally.” He said the only way the spread of the coronavirus is through social distancing, however uncomfortable. “We really don’t want to have to put in measures, the state doesn’t want to have to put in measures,” he said. “We’re well aware of the impact it has on our local businesses, and are being very cautious, and I fully understand that. But at this point in time the public health needs are more important to keep our numbers as low as possible, especially in Flagler County.”
Counties on their own would have limited efficacy if they were to impose further restrictions on their own, “but I’m pretty sure there’s great efficacy if it’s done at a statewide, or larger level,” Lord said. “But for us to do with the amount of travel in between other counties, there would be limited efficacy with such a fluid, moving populace. But if the state did something like that, we would obviously have to enforce that and we would participate in that, and I think there could be a difference. Because we do see other states showing a difference in slowing their case numbers by doing so.”
If it comes to that, a lockdown would mean that only “essential workers” such as first responders, health care workers, public health staff and critical government staff would be allowed to circulate freely, along with a limited number of service workers and businesses such as restaurants, delivery people, grocery stores, pharmacies. Residents would of course still be allowed to make trips to those businesses for essential services.
With serious shortages in personal protective equipment, urgent preparations under way locally at many levels–government, health care, schools–reflect the sense that the emergency is still in its earlier stages and will be playing out over at least several more weeks. And they reflect what health and government officials have been learning rapidly from other communities where the rate of infection and hospitalization zooms upward, as it is still expected to do in Florida, if not in this region. The hospital, for example, is preparing for a surge of Covid-19 patients in several ways.
Summarizing the situation at AdventHealth Palm Coast on WNZF’s daily program on Covid-19 this morning, Chief Operating Officer Wally De Aquino said the hospital had set aside a ward for Covid-19 patients but that both the hospital in general and the intensive care unit were in solid shape. He said the big tent outside the hospital is not for Covid-19 testing, but for overflow patients who would not need more intense hospitalization, and that Palm Coast government is offering the use of the city’s Community Center on Palm Coast Parkway as an additional overflow location for Covid-19 patients.
“At the moment, the hospital is actually doing well,” De Aquino said. “We have a good number of beds available. We’ve been tracking it closely to make sure that nobody that really [doesn’t] need to be admitted is admitted, or, if they are in our hospital currently, we’re checking currently to make sure that they can go home as fast as possible, obviously keeping in mind the safety of our patients. But everything is going fine. We have enough beds in our ICU. We have a cohort unit where it’s separated from the rest of the patients, so we have that especially for any patients that are under investigation until we get results from the testing. That’s going well.”De Aquino also addressed a lot of speculation and confusion about the big tent outside of the hospital. “The purpose of that tent is really if we have a large influx,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we have a place where we can separate patients that are coming in with upper respiratory issues, and separate them from the others that are showing up in our ER for other reasons, to minimize contamination. So we set that up about two weeks ago as a precaution. We have it equipped, we have it ready to go, we’ve been doing some drills. We’ve done multiple drills, we brought the fire department here to check it out and learn about our drills as well. The tent–it’s not a drive-thru test location. It is set up only if we have a surge.”
There’s a critical shortage of ventilators across the country. WNZF’s David Ayres asked De Aquino what the hospital’s preparedness was in that regard. De Aquino did not address the question directly. “The question is what if we get an overflow of people that are extremely sick, the 20 percent that we see in other areas, and over here, it could be more than 20 percent,” he said, a reference to the county’s heavily elderly population. In that case, the community center and possibly other areas in the county would kick in. “We have a tight, tight, very tight control process here at the hospital right now, and just this morning I received a text from our friend John Subers,” De Aquino said of one of the hospital’s top leaders, currently assigned to the Emergency Operations Center, “I just received a text this morning that we should be getting a shipment of supplies,” namely, personal protective equipment. He said regional companies are trying to come up with solutions to the mask shortage.
Jonathan Lord, the county’s emergency management chief, said the county is short on personal protective equipment, and what supplies it has received have been scant. “We’re hoping for more supplies, but at this point in time, until we actually see them sitting in front of us, we can’t say when we’re getting them,” Lord said.
The hospital has committed to pay the salaries of all its employees whether they are working or not. The employees have to agree to help outside their normal stations if a surge occurs, De Aquino said. Meanwhile, they can be home and not worry about losing their paycheck. The hospital has been cross-training many of its employees, especially in departments that are not as busy as others, to lend a hand in case of a surge.
Testing is still being limited by the lack of re-agents–the chemicals needed to complete a test at the lab. But local officials concede that the limitation is hurting: they would rather have a much higher level of testing, including drive-in testing. For now, they simply don’t have the means.
“Ideally, if we had all the testing capabilities we’d like,” said Dr. Stephen Bickel, the medical director at the Flagler and Volusia health departments, “I think we’d all agree we’d be aggressively testing. The countries that have done the best controlling this tested early and often to get a really good handle on the extent of the illness in the community–not so much for patient care, because there’s no treatment at this point. But for [understanding] how much is out there and do we need these population-wide suppression measures, or can we do just aggressive quarantining of people who have it, and also their contacts. So there’s no dispute there.” But given a limited number of tests, reagents and protective equipment, he said, “what has been developed is this strategy that is taking the higher risks and higher likelihood of having the disease, groups, testing them, conserving resources, so we can maximize our impact on the illness, on people affected now.”
Bickel acknowledged that individuals who have tested positive and who have had various physical contacts with objects that cannot possibly be traced, like door knobs in the community, are “one of these threads that’s not ideally dealt with at this time. But we are working hard, [Health Department Chief Bob Snyder] and I talk about this every day, how to get more tests, what the strategy would be to increase testing capabilities once we have the test, like setting up drive-in sites and things like that. We want to do this. It’s really a critical part of moving from this population suppression strategy to a more smart-suppression strategy, where you’re aggressively identifying cases and then managing their contacts. That’s how you transition to a less suppressive approach to this.” In other words, an approach that would not depend on strict stay-at-home orders.Meanwhile, if local jails have seen fewer incarcerations elsewhere in the state, the numbers remain stable in Flagler, Sheriff Rick Staly said today, with the jail population hovering around 200 and daily calls for service at 400.
This afternoon, Superintendent Jim Tager announced the launch of the resumption school–virtually, starting Monday, and involving all district employees.
“The health of all our employees is my main concern,” Tager said. “We’ve got great teachers ready to start our Virtual Education plan Monday, and I believe it’s the best health-related move to simply have the vast majority of our 1,700 employees remain home.” The superintendent told staff earlier Friday that everyone is to work remotely, remain available during their normal work hours, and if needed, be able to come to their worksites. This move will not impact employee pay. Schools across the state are under order to keep their campuses closed to students through April 15, a date that could be pushed back, depending on the state of the emergency. A decision is likely early next week. With Florida’s rapidly rising number of infections, resumption of school on campuses is unlikely.
“I’ve told our staff that this county has survived hurricanes, flooding, and devastating fires over the years,” Tager said. “I’m confident we will overcome this pandemic and this is the right move to do our part in that battle.”
At the end of today’s radio update on the virus, Snyder, the health department chief, went on record that “a cold beer while fishing,” as Ayres put it, would–in Snyder’s word–“be recommended.” He predicted a “great celebration” when the emergency is over.
HappyHappyJoyJoy says
Homeland Security deems banks as essential so I hope they follow the law as written and not make up their own rules. These people need to travel as well or these other essentially businesses would not be able to complete transactions because not everyone can be done online. So, they are as essential, even more so than a restaurant, let’s get that straight and stop cherry-picking what is deemed essential. 11 cases out of 100K plus people, still not mind-blowing, just saying. Besides there isn’t much here that people flock to besides grocery stores, restaurants, banks, and medical facilities. I mean it’s not like we have a nightlife like Jacksonville or Orlando. If anything people will pick it up from the grocery store on the carts or products so is limiting who can travel really necessary? No. That is not the correct response. Limiting the movement of those most affected by this is good enough and let the rest of us that are healthy and able work our jobs.
Extremely concerned in Flagler FL says
Social distancing???? There is no shelter in place order in Flagler, hence the reason for the surge in positive cases. What about people like me???? Cashiers, who must go to work and deal with all of the people coming through the store all day and night Long??? The customers are hardly 6 feet from the register where they are handing me money hundreds of times a day. Money that’s been through hundreds of possibly Corona virus positive hands. If I was ordered to stay at home I definitely would but until then, I cannot just not come to work for fear of being fired if I do that. If there was an order ordering my store to close because it is not essential then I could stay home and worry about paying my bills at a later time rather than worrying about losing my life going to work and dealing with hundreds of people who are clearly NOT staying in their houses in Flagler County.
Carol says
How come there is so little testing done in are county? I see a lot of younger people getting it . But the more I read you can’t get the test unless your over 65 and are running a fever. I saw a young lady on the news that is in the hospital with it and has never had a fever. So it does not seem to hit everyone the same way!
Please try to get more test in our town, so we can get them the help they need !
God bless you and God Bless America 🇺🇸
Worried says
Would HVAC,plumbing and electricians ne considered essential?
John doe says
Heres my take on this. Palm Coast and its residents are so entitled and selfish that rather than be inconvenienced for a few weeks they decided to leave their homes and mingle potentially infecting themselves and others. Once the older population here overwhelms the hospitals deaths will follow. Good job.
Grateful PC'er says
What is wrong with Palm Coasters? They continue to shop in droves at local big retailers – families of all ages and lots of elderly, older people. They are not purchasing essential items. They are buying flowers and pillows and bug spray and stuff they can live without for now. They are putting themselves and everyone else at risk. What message to stay in place did they miss? They bring their pets along with them. Its a social outing for them when that’s the last thing they should be doing. C’mon folks. Get real…take this virus seriously and stay away from stores, accept for food and life’s essentials needed for survival. Be good Americans. Its your patriotic duty not to snub your nose at this thing. Please.
Willy Boy says
If the virus decimates the police, fire and health personnel, then we’ll see the true colors of out society. The politicians can’t even distribute free (?) money in a timely fashion, much less needed medical supplies. 90+ degree heat is our only hope.
Lisa Kay Cook says
So the they think in PC that it was a “community door knob” that created some cases as they cannot draw a connection. I got a doorknob to look into : HAMMOCK BEACH RESORT! Chock full of NYers escaping theit lockdown. This resort is a hot zone, a golfer tested positive and was non chalant as employees are infected and lose work because of their elitist bs which allows them to disregard social distancing and NOT care about buying up all the essentials at our tiny Publix. And supposedly the county trails, parks are closed– but people are on Malacompra Trail, and at Bings chatting with passersby…” what’s all the fuss about? I am having a great vacation! ”
And the fools crying Media Hoax! While I agree the MSM is very alarmist (they do want you to tune in so their advertisers stay happy), this is no hoax. That’s the scariest part: ignorance. And this time, it can KILL you or your gramma.
Yeahisaidit says
Now people want to blame NY! How about all the bikers and spring breakers from All over the country not just from New York. Should of shut that shit down when they had the chance. Oh yeah, they had to get that money honey. Now that they did they can shut sh*t down….and while were at it we can blame NY. Shut up! If the Gov isn’t going to take it seriously why should every one else sure most people are thinking that way. Sad but true. Hence why they are still out not giving 2 f*cks. It’s all unfortunate.
Makeitso1701 says
Drive around Palm Coast especially in the c-section and you’ll see a lot of trump 2020 signs. That explains a lot why some people are not taking this virus seriously. These fanatics are taking everything that their cult leader says as truth.
WAKE UP PEOPLE, trump doesn’t give a shit about you.
Gary R says
Think about this. The Coronavirus originated in China. If there were no virus in China there would not have been a virus in USA. And, you blame Trump? LOL Silly Rabbit.
wait-what says
Yes it started in China but it’s HERE NOW! Blaming China does nothing which is the same thing Trump did when he had a chance to get it under control,he called it a hoax. This is not about politics it’s about saving lives (which includes you Gary and your loved ones) and the way to do that is by everybody being on the same page and sacrificing.
We can see that won’t happen because there are too many different agendas from politicians to citizens.
The way to stop people from coming to Florida was to shut down the state but Governor wants to keep the money coming. This will backfire when the hospitals get over run by our residents and out of state people. Why he can’t see that happening is puzzling…states are overwhelmed with their own residents and he’s letting in maybe sick outsiders. Trumps says America first so shouldn’t Desantis say Florida first.
No one saw this coming and we are used to these sort of things not happening here,but it is here and it is happening and too many Americans are immature to the gravity of the situation. Too many egos and individualist attitudes which is going to cost people lives. This coronavirus is not going to go away by itself in 2 weeks but America has a two week mentality and we will find out how other countries feel.We already have the most cases of the virus than any other country in the world,more than China and Italy in way less time. Two reasons are because of bad leadership and even worse actions by some citizens. And this is with a lack of testing. We have seen the enemy and it is us!
Gary R says
You missed the point. Blaming China does nothing which is the same thing Trump did when he had a chance to get it under control,he called it a hoax. It is China’s fault! PERIOD. No China Coronavirus NO Coronavirus in America. We wouldn’t even be talking about it. BTW Trump did not call it a hoax. Trump referred to the alleged “politicizing” of the coronavirus by Democrats as “their new hoax.” He did not refer to the coronavirus itself as a hoax. Throughout the speech, Trump reiterates his administration is taking the threat of the coronavirus seriously. Try some fack checking.
Fred dibhand says
Does anybody out there know the average age of the people who have died from the coronavirus I can’t seem to find the information anymore?
john says
this is where the stupid go to languish. crazy comments.
Lisa says
Just curious why all this turns into a political bashing party instead of just doing what you’re told. As far as I am concerned the way I see it. Florida predominately has a community of elderly yet not seeing the testing….Why???? Everything is closed down so social distancing? Cant be much to that no where to go. So what’s the big stink? Desantis needs to get some testing done ASAP and close the state borders. Anyone from NY, NJ, CT, MA trying to get down here turn around and do what you are told shelter in place
That means in your own state. And that needs to be reinforced. Anyone coming off the plane can just turn around and go back on the plane. So far all these rules have been laughable and Desantis better get with the program or he will find himself whining like a big baby like Coumo but failing to see he didn’t prepare just like Cuomo.
palmcoaster says
Why the city had to offer our very restricted parking area community center as a potential hospital for the predicted increase in cases. Why to bring the virus in the very center of our communities so close to our homes. The proper thing to do is isolation and we are practicing that in our homes I would say most of us. Then why to spread the virus by bringing it to the community center?The proper strategy to do is to keep it right there in the hospital grounds by erecting tent hospitals like are doing everywhere as there is plenty of vacant land around the hospital and in Town Center. Just keep the COVED-19 “isolated” around the vacant hospital grounds and do not bring it so close to all in the center of our community to this small community center. This is a very bad idea…they tell us isolation is proper strategy to defeat this evil virus and plan to spread it in the center of our community? Please use common sense city officials.
Sherry says
Right On wait-what! Thanks!
MITCH says
The Community Center is in the center of Old Palm Coast where the MOST VULNERABLE, senior and elderly live. Placing it this close to the most vulnerable citizens is very dangerous could invite more cases among the elderly and possibly the death toll to surge. Please rethink this decision.
palmcoaster says
I can’t even imagine the cost for sanitizing if ever possible completely our small community center after tending there corona virus patients? Isolation is the name of the strategy then do not spread the virus in the middle of our neighborhood were health professionals will have to travel 30 minutes from the hospital to care for the sick…Lets isolate not spread this virus please.
palmcoaster says
Our old hospital purchased by the county was contaminated for years of usage and now after useless and very costly desinfection’s and renovations is suggested to be bull dozed down as seats empty after making our law enforcement employees sick while working there. Is this going to be the same end for our community center after erroneously offered for a hospital annex to be used hosting COVID 19 sick? That community center cost us 7 to 10 millions or more? Who will want ever to use it as a community center again if so? Very bad plan.