The COVID outbreak in Florida is worse than it's ever been. Deaths, hospitalizations, and infections are all way above their peaks (even with 50% of us being vaccinated and mostly protected). Just one of our local hospitals told me earlier today that they have 16 KIDS admitted and two in the ICU with COVID diagnosis. Statewide, we have over 13,000 Floridians in the hospital right now due to COVID-19.

Sadly, the Delta variant is serving as a sad reminder that we have not yet done enough to beat this virus.

Please, get vaccinated. Don't put your family at risk, don't make a mistake you may regret for the rest of your life. These vaccines are safe and effective and the Delta variant is getting people far sicker, impacting more and more kids, and it is threatening the recovery we've all enjoyed.

We've known for well over a year that our way out of this was shots in arms. It's time. 

Here's COVID-19 vaccine resources near you.

Also, we're all masking up again to beat back this most recent spike in cases. We need to do everything we can in this moment, we've beaten back prior spikes with masking, and we need to do it again.

Remember, none of this is for us, it's for those around us, the people we love and the people who love us back. Let's do everything we can to keep them safe, to keep them healthy, and beat COVID-19.