Covid-19 Update | April 22 at 9:59 PM

I skipped my birthday for an update, so here’s a new one. We are seeing the green shoots of reopening everywhere. Bay County voted to reopen the Beaches on Friday. Gov. Desantis says the worst is behind us. Georgia is open for business. I can say this is the first week in six that we have more business than the prior week at my practice’s 26 locations. All signs point toward Florida sticking with May 1st letting the Safer-At-Home order expire and allow non-essential businesses and restaurants reopen. The summer tourism season looks like it will be saved. It will be a bit different and I’m sure there will be some capacity limits and more space between groups on the beach and in restaurants, but we can return to a sense of normalcy far earlier than the rest of the country. It’s depressing for the people living in other regions with leadership that is doubling down on their bad policies, but it will just mean our region will grow faster and it will be up to us to remind them of the error of their ways so that the next time a new scary virus comes along we speak louder than the ones who want us to shut down our economy again. From an update standpoint. One new case in Bay County yesterday with over 30 new tests, so no surprise because more tests will yield six positives per 100 tests. Florida continues to stay well under 1,000 new cases even though we are now testing nearly 10,000 per day. The NYC and Detroit area have 64% of all the deaths in the US and as I stated two days ago New Orleans is rapidly recovering. They only reported 331 new cases, which is the lowest in over a month for them. Great state and local leader plus heat, humidity, and sunlight will make the Southeast the winners in COVID recovery. Bay County still has the lowest rate of infection per capita in the state among counties with over 100,000 residents and has a rate lower than any state in the nation. We are blessed to live among such level headed people who mostly reject fear and know we have work to do in order to reverse the damage that has been done. For about another month, elderly and immune compromised residents should continue to stay at home except for receipt of essential services; but based on the White House guidelines, even at-risk populations are allowed back in the public after Phase Two is completed. Until tomorrow, I hope you all have an incredibly happy and productive day.