MIAMI (WSVN) - City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the next few weeks will be crucial in the fight against the coronavirus, as health officials reported a record number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the state.
During a news conference held Thursday morning, Suarez reacted to the new coronavirus statistics reported by the Florida Department of Health in the last 24 hours, with 13.965 new coronavirus cases and a record-breaking 156 deaths statewide. Forty-four of those reported deaths happened in Miami-Dade County.
“In the next few weeks, if something is not done to dramatically alter our course, we could be in a more dire situation than what we’re in,” he said.
Local leaders are keeping all options on the table in an effort to slow the spread.
“I’m meeting tomorrow with members of our business community to talk to them about the possibility of a future lockdown,” Suarez said.
As he gave an update on Miami’s standing in the battle against COVID-19, he said some of the numbers looked satisfactory.
“The high point was 125 cases per day. We’re down to approximately 60 cases per day,” he said.
However, Suarez said there’s more that still needs to be done in order to flatten the curve as hospitals across South Florida are at 95 percent capacity.
“They’re converting non-COVID beds to COVID beds,” he said.
He said that number is the most crucial factor in determining how to move forward.
In Miami-Dade, hospitals have only 14.27% of intensive care unit beds available, while hospitals in Broward County have just 11.58% availability.
“We have plans B, C and D as to how we convert our recovery beds and covert other things to ICU beds. We are not at that point at this time,” said Jackson Health System President and CEO Carlos Migoya.
Migoya sought to calm concerns over shrinking hospital bed capacity during a call with county commissioners.
“We’ve been able to discharge at the same level that we’re admitting,” he said. “It’s not like we’re seeing less patients. It’s just that we have been able to discharge other patients.”
“Ninety-two percent of all our patients who come in positive, go home,” Aurelio M. Fernandez III, president and CEO of Memorial Healthcare System, said.
For Memorial Healthcare System, leaders said that they have added 100 traveling nurses to help their staff, and another 100 will be added over the next few weeks.
“This disease is highly communicable and is very dangerous,” chief medical officer Dr. Stanley Marks said. “We have to do everything we can to prevent the community spread of this disease.”
Despite the increase in cases, health officials said there have been some encouraging signs. The COVID mortality rate in Miami-Dade has dropped 1% to 1.7% since the beginning of July, due largely to more people testing positive.
“Though it may be a little younger, they’re still very sick, requiring intensive services, not necessarily ICU, but a lot of services are required to care for these patients,” said Dr. Tanira Ferreira, Chief Medical Officer at University of Miami Hospital.
Suarez said there will a lot of input and data considered to make a decision bout a possible lockdown, but there needs to be a long-term plan to avoid any more back-and-forth with closures.
That’s a point that Suarez wants young people between the ages of 18 and 34 to understand. He said the highest number of infections are represented by that age group, a statistic that becomes particularly worrisome in multi-generational households.
It’s another reason Suarez is working with the state and the county to provide 450 hotel rooms just for isolation for the sick and vulnerable.
“People who are living in one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, they can’t isolate, they have nowhere to go,” he said.
Suarez said they’re setting up 311 as an intake system for hotel rooms.
He also said that there is a system that works through the hospitals making the isolation recommendations, but it’s not being used at the rate leaders like to see.
As lines at testing sites continue to grow longer, the state is working to improve wait times and results by offering self-swabbing for people with symptoms. That pilot program is launching Friday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens and the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale.
“We needs to get these testing results back in a timely fashion,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Thursday night, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced the county is expanding a program that provides hotel rooms to people with COVID-19 so they can isolate from high-risk family members. They are adding 400 rooms.
Anyone with questions and concerns about the coronavirus can call the Florida Department of Health’s 24-hour hotline at 1-866-779-6121.
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