Chairman's Message
Governor DeSantis Stays Focused on Saving Lives
Governor DeSantis is prioritizing rapid response strike teams centers for Florida Covid patients by setting up new monoclonal antibody therapy treatment sites in Broward County, West Palm Beach County, Brevard County, Orlando and Jacksonville, with more to come around the state. These locations will have the capacity to serve hundreds of patients every day in areas with higher outbreaks. It’s strategic and making a difference.
“Early monoclonal antibody treatment keeps people out of the hospital and saves lives,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We look forward to continuing to open these sites throughout the state and hope awareness about the treatment continues to spread.”
Crisscrossing the state to raise awareness of these effective drug treatments, the Governor is also energetically backed by leading medical professionals in Florida.
“The Governor is absolutely spot on,” said John Couris, President and CEO of Tampa General Hospital. “This is a therapy that is effective, but this is a therapy that is less known. This is a therapy that needs to be taken advantage of and Tampa General Hospital, USF and our private practice physicians are using it very successfully on positive COVID-19 patients.”
“We were the first system in Florida to offer monoclonal antibodies to COVID patients,” said Dr. Kami Kim, MD, from Tampa General and USF Morsani College of Medicine. “So far we have treated over 1,600 patients with monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID. These treatments, as Governor DeSantis, Dean Lockwood and Mr. Couris said, prevent the virus from infecting our cells. You probably heard them called ‘neutralizing antibodies’ and that is because they neutralize the virus. That's a pretty powerful treatment against the virus that is very effective in our own studies and in studies across the country.”
More monoclonal antibody strike teams are being created to take treatment directly to Florida’s vulnerable populations in long-term care facilities. Rather than having nursing home residents be required to leave the facility to receive monoclonal antibody therapy, these teams will deploy to them on site to provide treatment.
“The monoclonal antibody treatment can be a game changer if you get it early,” said Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration Simone Marstiller. “I have seen firsthand how effective this therapy can be at keeping people out of the hospital and speeding their recovery. Once again, Governor DeSantis has prioritized Florida’s seniors and has created a delivery system for the monoclonal antibody treatment that will allow Florida’s most vulnerable citizens to receive the treatment without leaving their long-term care facility and keeping them at home and out of hospitals.”
To find locations to receive monoclonal antibody treatments:floridahealthcovid19.gov <[link removed]>.
- Read more about Orlando here:[link removed]
- Watch Orlando announcement here:[link removed]
- Read more about Brevard here: [link removed]
- Read more about Jacksonville here:[link removed]
- Watch Jacksonville announcement here: [link removed]
- Read more about Broward here: [link removed]
- Read more about the West Palm here:[link removed]
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Note on the our Third Quarter Meeting:
Omni Hotels & Resorts will continue with its current Safe and Clean <[link removed]> protocols, but will follow state and local mandates pertaining to guest and associate requirements for mask wearing and social distancing while indoors. At this time there aren’t any mandates for Osceola or Orange county.
Florida
The Florida Board of Education voted to hold Broward County and Alachua County school boards accountable for imposing strict mask requirements in violation of new state rules.
“Every school board member and superintendent has the duty to comply with the law, whether they agree with it or not,” said Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran during an emergency meeting Tuesday evening.
The state board voted to direct Corcoran “to take all legal steps” to enforce the state rules. Those new rules aim to guarantee that parents have the right to decide if their children wear masks at school or not.
Board Chairman Tom Grady outlined the potential actions: “That may include withholding funds from the district — although I would add a footnote that I do not want to withhold funds in a way that would harm any child in any district...It may involve withholding salaries. It may involve removing officers...It may involve reviewing district conduct. It may involve public records requests to see how monies are being spent within the district, including whether they're being spent for public relations or political purposes contrary to their constitutional mandate. It would include enhanced reporting and accountability to this board.”
He also said that there may be a report to the Legislature with recommendations for lawmakers to take further steps in law.
Governor DeSantis is proposing three policies for the next session to help recruit law enforcement officers.
The Governor announced the policies at the 2021 Biennial National Conference & Expo hosted by the National Fraternal Order of Police with the goal of continuing to show Florida’s support for its high quality local and state law enforcement agencies.
“As so many cities and states choose to disrespect, degrade and defund the honorable work of law enforcement, we want Florida to continue valuing our men and women of law enforcement today, tomorrow and for generations to come,” Governor DeSantis said. “That’s why today, I am proud to announce new initiatives to recruit and reward brave, high quality law enforcement officers in Florida that I will be including in my legislative priorities for our upcoming legislative session, including $5,000 signing bonuses.”
These proposals provide state resources to recruit law enforcement officers through three programs:
- New officer signing bonuses;
- Academy scholarship program;
- Out-of-state relocation support.
To read more: [link removed]
Watch the full event video here: [link removed]
Washington, D.C.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio was on Fox News’ Sean Hannity program explaining that Biden was warned for months what would happen in Afghanistan if there was a precipitous U.S. withdrawal of military forces. And he ignored it, and the consequences happened.
“Sean, not just did I tell them, but it was a bipartisan warning, OK?” he said. “You look at the intelligence, you look at everything before us, it was clear that not only was it the worst-case scenario out there, it was the likeliest outcome that was going to happen, and we kept insisting, what is the plan if this happens? What is the plan? And they arrogantly, and they smugly ignored it. They ignored everyone who was warning them because they’re the experts, they know everything, and now we’ve seen the consequences."
“There are two things now to keep in mind,” Rubio continued. “Number one is Joe Biden was elected promising competence, the return on normalcy, the return of expertise to foreign policy, and we see that they can’t even execute on something like this, and ignore the people who know something about it. That does encourage people like China — countries like China and other adversaries not just to go out and try to undermine confidence in America, but actually test America and think they can get away with it.”
“And the other is something that the Pentagon’s already saying, and we’ve already been saying for close to nine months, the biggest problem here is going to be now that al Qaeda is coming back to Afghanistan, let there be no doubt,” he added.
Social Media Highlights
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