Florida is moving forward with reopening. Is it in for a second surge?

Florida is moving forward with reopening. Are we in for a second surge? As Florida continues under Phase 3 of reopening, public health experts consider where the state is at with coronavirus spread. Tampa Bay Times

When Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Florida would move into Phase 3 of reopening with no capacity restraints on businesses, he pointed to a decline in the number of coronavirus infections across the state.

There were fewer cases, fewer people in the hospital and lower positivity rates, he said.

Florida has seen a general decline since a strong surge peaked in July, when hospitals experienced an influx of positive patients and deaths spiked. Over the summer, the state recorded hundreds of new fatalities every day for weeks. But public health experts fear that the latest reopening may spur yet another surge in infections and deaths.

For example, while levels are certainly lower now, Florida’s overall level of infection and spread still hovers at about the same levels recorded in the early summer, shortly after DeSantis loosened restrictions at the start of Phase 2 of his reopening plans, said Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, a professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Florida International University.

“We’re not any better than we were at the time of reopening,” Trepka said. “Within a few weeks of reopening we started having an explosion of cases. Just because we’re in a good place now doesn’t mean we’re in a good place a few weeks from now.”

Florida has averaged about 2,300 new cases a day over the past week, which is similar to where cases were in mid-June and nearly four times higher than they were in late April when the governor announced the first phase of reopening. ...