With all the signs of coronavirus moving in the right direction, Orange County officials said Monday they were in doubt about threatening progress by easing bar restrictions ahead of this week’s scheduled meetings between industry officials and state regulators.
“It’s too risky, ” said Mayor Jerry Demings. «… We were going to track the main epidemics related to bars. I don’t want to go back to that. We want to stand firm to involve the virus. The elements that we have in position that seem to work, let’s leave them in position. “
Since peaking in mid-June, Orange has seen its positivity rate steadily decline for four straight weeks, while cases requiring hospitalization or an ICU bed also decreased for the first week since May 29, said Dr. Raul Pino, the Florida Department of Health officer for the county.
Daily knowledge reported that on Monday it shows that 7.7% of the tests returned on Sunday were positive for the virus and 6.9% of Saturday’s tests were positive, while the cumulative rate of the county is 11.4%.
However, deaths continue to rise, Pino said, with 19 new deaths reported in the county since Thursday. This measure is regularly a few weeks other points of knowledge.
“This thing can come back… if we take our guard down,” Pino said. “If anything, we need to be more on top of this issue.”
After a crusade through Florida’s artisanal brewers and demanding legal situations from bar owners, secretary of the Department of Commercial and Professional Regulation, Halsey Beshears, announced a series of statewide meetings on Friday to design a reapprobre plan.
Beshears, a user appointed through Governor Ron DeSantis, banned alcohol in bars in June.
At the time, there were instances of COVID-19 in Orange County, and follow-up investigations had connected dozens, if not hundreds, of infections to bars, that is, in eastern Orange County, near the University of Central Florida.
The Florida Brewers Guild, an industry lobby group, said last week that more than a hundred craft breweries could close permanently if they were not allowed to sell drinks for consumption on site, without supporting them.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said the idea that breweries can reopen safely, however, bars are another challenge because, at most, they are small spaces where consumers meet for social purposes. After a few drinks, they may simply practice social estrangement and put on masks, he said.
“You regularly go to bars to interact with other people,” Dyer said, noting that she was sympathetic to the industry, which was crushed by the pandemic. “It’s an incredibly complicated situation, and if you’re going to open bars, I think you want strict oversight. We’ll have to be able to hold the owners accountable.”
Demings asked to keep the line and not reopen the bars, which raises demanding situations to allow others to gather in small areas. He said he would most likely allow other people to drink in bars with outdoor spaces.
Demings said their compliance inspectors’ strike groups can simply ban if they reopen to ensure they meet protection guidelines.
So far, these teams, made up of health officials, code enforcement and others, have inspected 140 companies, and found 82% compliance. The maximum non-unusual deficiencies are the lack of signage and the absence of marks on the floor to inspire social remoteness.
Pino said fitness was largely following COVID-19 outbreaks at 3 assisted living facilities: the Ocoee Health Care Center on Maguire Road on Ocoee, the Guardian Care Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Church Street in Orlando, and the Terra Vista Health and Rehabilitation Center in Lucerne’s Terrace in Orlando.
COVID-19 is blamed for the deaths of 4 citizens of the Ocoee facility, while 22 others are hospitalized. Health officials say 66 citizens and 30 nursing homes tested positive.
Pino said one Guardian Care resident died as a result of COVID-19 and thirteen others are hospitalized. Forty of the 74 citizens and 34 of the 175 workers in the nursing home tested positive.
In Terra Vista, 33 of the 59 citizens tested positive for the virus, 10 were hospitalized and one died. Approximately 26 members are sick with COVID-19.
“Any small violation of infection practices, as undeniable as washing your hands between patients, can cause an epidemic like this,” Pino said. “This virus has the ability to spread very quickly.”
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