COVID-19

The 4th Wave of COVID-19 Is Finally Beginning to Break in Florida

Our healthcare system is finally starting to go back to normal

Photo by Adhy Savala on Unsplash

It’s with great joy that I’ve come to report that Florida is finally starting to come out of the other end of the “fourth wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Things really began to tick back up again in mid-to-late June, as the Delta variant spread in the state of Florida and elsewhere in the South. Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and several other states were all hit very hard, with tens of thousands of deaths in each state and countless illnesses.

Here in Florida, our hospital beds quickly ran out and our ICUs in hospitals around the state reached and exceeded capacity. Hospitals throughout the state hit “code black” status when available beds filled to the point where hospitals had to start rationing care and making people wait. That’s when things have gone really bad in other places, like California, New York, and India; it’s when hospitals have had to turn patients away that the death counts spiked and families were shattered.

Healthcare workers were reaching their breaking point. Some of them staged a walkout in protest of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ handling of the pandemic and his refusal to implement safety protocols like mask…