About 200 doctors warned the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, Lenny Curry, that celebrating in this city the act in which President Donald Trump will accept the Republican candidacy is “extremely dangerous” when Florida is one of the hot spots of the COVID-19 in United States.
Allow more than 40,000 people across the country, including journalists and anti-Trump protesters, to come to Jacksonville it is “an unequivocal provocation to the disease”“Predictably harmful and medically disrespectful to city dwellers and the rest of the country,” the doctors say in a letter published on firstcoastnews.com and other media.
The signatories to the letter stress that the Republican National Convention should postpone that act, set for August 27, or significantly reduce capacity, and Mayor Curry should order the mandatory use of face masks in the city before that date, as others have done. Florida cities.
Curry announced this month that he had accepted the final act of the Republican National Convention to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, to take place in Jacksonville.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper declined to hold a mass event for fear of an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections.
In the letter addressed to the mayor and the municipal board, the doctors recall that the number of infections and hospitalizations continues to grow in Florida, which is now one of the “hot spots” of the pandemic in the United States.
This Saturday there were 9,585 new cases of COVID-19 in Florida, a record that brought the number of cases accumulated since March 1 in this state to 132,545., which along with Texas, California, South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona is experiencing a rebound in the disease amid the economic reopening.
They also point out that unfortunately until now “there is no vaccine or a particularly effective treatment against this new virus” and that the health authorities recommend keeping a physical distance between people of six feet (1.80 meters), wearing a mask and not allow groups of more than 50 people, especially in closed spaces.
Not to mention that Tump and his followers are not in favor of covering their nose and mouth to avoid contagion, Doctors say that “for some people the masks have become a political statement”, which in their opinion is “irrational” and the propitiator of “division”.
“The enemy is the virus, not other people,” they emphasize in the letter.
According to doctors, celebrating the act of the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville will translate into “an increase in hospitalizations, long-term health problems and deaths.”
In addition, they recall that the most at risk are the elderly, the poor and the chronically ill, as well as health workers at all levels, first responders and workers in the service sector and at airports.
“It is extremely dangerous and contrary to public health recommendations to hold a large event in an area where the numbers of cases are rising”, they indicate.
A survey by the University of North Florida (UNF) revealed this week that 58% of Jacksonville residents are opposed to the final act of the Republican National Convention being held in the city, mainly for fear of the spread of the COVID-19.
The poll included a sample of more than 2,500 people registered as voters in Duval County, to which Jacksonville belongs, of which 71% said they were concerned about “a possible transmission triggered by the convention.”
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