COVID-19 situation gets horrifying in Broward County: Mayor Geller

The situation is getting horrifying in the country with increasing numbers of COVID-19 virus cases. Broward County Mayor Steve Geller stated.

According to Broward County Mayor Steve Geller, Florida has become the national point from where 20% of new cases are coming. Broward and Miami-Dade Counties also manage the nation in recent COVID pandemic in hospitalizations.

Broward reported 12,590 fresh cases of COVID-19 from July 30 to August 5. Out of the total 2.7 million COVID-19 cases, Broward has alone logs over 281,000 with 3,000 deaths.

While hosting a press conference, mayor Steve Geller said that the increase in the cases of COVID-19 made a situation for making vaccination mandatory. Till present, 72% population of Broward County has been categorized in that those have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Mayor Geller added that Broward County residents had been now rightfully scared, leading to an uptick in vaccinations.

During a press briefing on August 2, mayor Geller said that he was pleased to tell about the vaccination rate, which went from great to horrible and now going back up again because people rightfully were getting scared. They had peaked for one week, with close to 175,000 vaccinations. They were under 10,000 a week. Then two weeks ago, as the [COVID-19] numbers starting scaring people. They went up to 16,000 new first-time vaccinations. Last week, they went up to 26,000.

During the time between the COVID-19 cases spike in Broward County, the administration imposed a mask mandate inside county buildings, at county parks, and at the county courthouse to mitigate the COVID-19 spread in the state and bring it back to the state of normalcy.

Mayor Geller said the local government doesn’t have the authority to impose more restrictions due to Governor Ron DeSantis’ orders. But Mayor Geller said that he believes that county leaders should be the ones that get to decide what is best for their residents.

Mayor Geller said there has also been an increase in COVID-19 testing in recent weeks. The Florida Department of Health in Broward County recently opened six drive-through or walk-up testing sites in response to the renewed demand.