Florida battles double duel as COVID deaths spike and hurricane approaches

As the US state of Florida continued to battle record numbers of Coronavirus deaths on Friday, a state of emergency was imposed in all counties along its east coast as Hurricane Isaias barreled towards them. 

According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Isaias will drench Florida’s Atlantic coast this weekend after passing over the Bahamas. The center warned of dangerous storm surge, flooding and high winds.

NPR reported that governor Ron DeSantis signed an order Friday declaring “a state of emergency in every coastal county of Florida’s east coast, from Miami-Dade to Nassau counties.”

The storm could begin affecting South Florida “as early as late tonight into tomorrow morning, with the potential to increase in strength to Category 2 [hurricane],” DeSantis said at a news conference shortly before noon Friday.

Safety concerns about the storm prompted the Florida Division of Emergency Management to initially shut down all state-supported COVID-19 testing sites.

But that has since changed and on Friday DeSantis said only testing sites on the state’s eastern coast will be closed.

This comes as Florida and California, two of the most populous US states, reported record increases in COVID-19 deaths on Friday, according to a Reuters tally. 

Florida reported 257 deaths and California 208 fatalities.

Reuters reported that for Florida this is the fourth day in a row with a record rise in deaths and for California the second this week. 

Overall in the United States, deaths have increased by over 25,000 in July to 153,000 total lives lost since the pandemic started.

California became the first US state to have over half a million cases on Friday. Florida is in second place with over 470,000 infections.

California’s death toll rose to over 9,200, the third-highest in the country behind New York and New Jersey. Florida ranks eighth with nearly 7,000 deaths.

California and Florida are among 19 states that saw cases more than double in July.

Florida had over 311,000 new cases in July, more than triple the 96,000 new cases it reported in June. The state also recorded over 3,400 deaths in July compared with about 1,000 the prior month.

Florida reported record one-day increases in cases three times during the month, with the highest on July 12, at 15,300 new cases in a single day.

California had over 260,000 new cases in July with a record one-day increase of 12,120 on July 22.

Nationally, deaths are rising at their fastest rate since early June and one person in the United States died about every minute from COVID-19 on Wednesday, the day with the largest increase in deaths so far this week.