War over masks deepens in US South as COVID-19 cases surge

A mask mandate controversy has pitted Florida schools against officials, with the largest school in the state imposing mask in defiance of the state Republican governor as the coronavirus deaths reached a five-month high across the United States.

The Miami-Dade County School Board voted on Wednesday to require most of the district's 360,000 students, as well as staff, to wear face coverings when classes begin on Monday.

Board chair Perla Tabares Hantman said that “what we are facing in our community is a public health emergency where lives are at risk.”

The decision was made in defiance of an executive order made Governor Ron DeSantis last month to bar local officials from imposing mask mandates.

He called mask-wearing a personal choice which for students should be made by parents.

The school decision came as the southern United States has recorded the highest number of infections in the country.

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Nearly 5,600 students and over 300 employees remained in isolation or quarantine on in Tampa, Florida on Wednesday. They were either infected or potentially being exposed to the virus.

Florida country declares state of emergency

Florida county Palm Beach has declared a state of emergency as COVID-19 patients are again overwhelming hospitals in the region.

The county’s commissioner Melissa McKinlay proposed issuing the emergency order after all 12 beds in the intensive care unit (ICU) at a local medical center became occupied.

The shortage of ICU beds reportedly forced medical workers to send emergency room patients to facilities in Miami, Orlando and other cities in the state.

Meanwhile, neighboring hospitals are reportedly refusing to take in extra patients.

On one occasion, Lakeside Medical Center called 13 hospitals in the county asking them to accept a COVID-19 patient, and none of them would.

“There are so many patients, it's overwhelming a lot of the hospitals,” said Darcy Davis, the CEO of the Health Care District of the county.

The state of emergency declaration is the second of its kind in the county, which was under such conditions from March 13, 2020, until June 26 this year.

The new order comes as Florida as well as the of the country are seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, largely driven by a highly infectious variant, known as Delta.

The variant accounts for more than 98.8% of American cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Tuesday.

Biden urges vaccine boosters as immunity wanes 

US President Joe Biden announced a plan to offer booster shots for all Americans, as new study shows the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s effectiveness against the delta variant is "generally decreased.”

Biden said on Wednesday all Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot.

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He said vaccination sites will begin giving third doses starting on September 20. The booster shots which are free, will be available at about 80,000 vaccination locations across the country.

“It will make you safer and for longer, and it will help us end the pandemic faster,” said he president.

Biden said his administration has been preparing for this eventuality and has enough supply.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has long been calling for the vaccines to be distributed more equitably throughout the globe, said that “the data does not indicate that boosters are needed.”

Biden, however, said, “We can take care of America and help the world at the same time.”

He claimed Washington has donated more vaccine doses than the rest of the world combined, and has committed to giving away more than 600 million doses. 

The administration has more than 100 million doses stockpiled.

According to a research, released as three articles in the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, protection provided by vaccines declines over time.

The booster strategy came as Biden, who had declared the nation reopened for normal life for the July 4 holiday, is struggling to regain control of a pandemic.

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