SHOT: After Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry issued a city-wide mask order to blunt the spread of coronavirus, the RNC promised to abide by any and all local regulations.
RNC spokesman Mike Rews: “The RNC is committed to holding a safe convention that fully complies with local health regulations in place at the time. The event is still two months away, and we are planning to offer health precautions including but not limited to temperature checks, available PPE, aggressive sanitizing protocols, and available COVID-19 testing.”
CHASER: Mike Pence and the RNC Host Committee flouted the mask requirement during a reception last night in Jacksonville. This is the second time this week the Trump administration ignored local mask mandates in Florida — the first being Donald Trump in Miami on Friday.
In response, Florida Democratic Party spokesperson Frances Swanson released the following statement:
“Mike Pence’s maskless event yesterday in Jacksonville is the latest example of the Trump campaign’s willingness to flout health guidelines simply because they don’t feel like it. Donald Trump and the RNC keep making promises about protecting public health, but they have given us absolutely no reason to trust them.”
Miami Herald Fact Checks Pence’s Coronavirus Claims
The Miami Herald fact checked remarks made by Vice President Mike Pence last week about the coronavirus pandemic in Florida. Pence claimed that the situation was improving in the Sunshine State, yet the data from the Florida Department of Health showed that testing positivity rates, hospitalizations, and deaths all increased leading up to his visit.
Keep this fact check handy while Donald Trump is in Florida today, given he will undoubtedly attempt to spew the same misinformation to downplay his ineffective response to this pandemic. Recent polls suggest that voters are not buying the Trump campaign’s attempt to put up smoke and mirrors. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released today showed that 67% of voters disapproved of Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, a new high.
Miami Herald:‘Obvious propaganda’: Pence claim of COVID-19‘flattening’contradicted by FloridadataBy Anna Claudia Chacin and Sarah Blaskey | July 10, 2020
KEY POINTS
- But Florida Department of Health data analyzed by the Miami Herald show the percentage of people testing positive each day is still trending upward in Florida. Other indicators are similarly troubling and contradict the White House’s hopeful message.
- “When I saw that [Pence] clip, I got nauseous because it’s obvious propaganda,” said Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego.
- “To have anything in the double digits is scary. When you’re at 15% that means you basically have spread that is unchecked unbridled and that’s where Florida is now with those numbers,” Topol said.
- The number of new confirmed cases per day skyrocketed in Florida by the end of June, dwarfing daily records from April. Florida has broken the daily record for the number of new cases in a 24-hour period five times. On Saturday, July 4, DOH reported 11,458 new cases, a record high. Friday, with the president coming to town for a fundraiser, the state nearly matched that number, logging 11,433 new confirmed cases.
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the task force, said Florida opened too soon. The state “jumped over a couple of checkpoints,” Fauci said Thursday in aninterview with FiveThirtyEight. He was absent from Wednesday’s briefing.
- Both Pence and Birx pointed to what they called positive indicators regarding hospital capacity in Florida. But state data show that 59 Florida counties have reached more than 65 percent capacity. Eighteen of them have fewer than 20% of their beds available.
- Although DeSantis’ office promised last week that it would begin reporting current hospitalization numbers for all counties, those figures have yet to be reported. On Tuesday, DeSantis refused to say why.
