10k a day trusting their gut and waking up, page-21

A major American state has become a tragic case study in what can occur when authorities let Covid-19 rip with low vaccinate rates and little-to-no infection control measures.
Florida was one of the first jurisdictions in the United States to wind back initial restrictions to combat the virus, while cases were still rising, in a bid to return to normal life.
Authorities then went further, launching a war on restrictions themselves, including banning mandates for face masks in certain settings, such as schools.
“We can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state, and I can tell you, Florida – we’re a free state,” Governor Ron DeSantis said recently.
Rhetoric surrounding the rollout of covid vaccines has been at times not supportive and undermining, and Florida has been criticised for its lax take-up of jabs.
Now, while America struggles under the weight of a new wave of cases, thanks to the highly infectious Delta strain, Florida is in a particularly dire position.
The Washington Post described the state as being “the epicentre of a summer coronavirus spike” with an average of almost 30,000 new daily cases.
It’s one of just three US states to hit three million total cases. If Florida was a country, it would now rank 16th in terms of the most infections in the world.

Fatalities are up 190 per cent to an average of 170 per day. Some 41,000 people in Florida have died since the start of the pandemic.