Florida's Latest News

Tyler Sirois, Cord Byrd heading Florida House’s redistricting subcommittees

Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls rounded out the his chamber’s redistricting team Thursday.

Rep. Tyler Sirois will head the Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee while Rep. Cord Byrd will chair the State Legislative Redistricting Committee.

Rep. Tom Leek, an Ormand Beach Republican, had already been tapped to head the full Redistricting Committee in the House.

The assignment of Sirois, a Merritt Island Republicans, and Byrd, a Neptune Beach Republican, means the Space Coast and Northeast Florida will boast outsized pull drawing maps for Florida’s soon-to-be 28 congressional districts and its state House and Senate seats.

Gov. DeSantis credits monoclonal antibody treatment with drop in COVID-19 hospitalizations

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted dropping hospital admissions for COVID-19 Thursday during a stop at Palm Beach County’s Department of Health, crediting the state’s monoclonal antibody treatment facilities with keeping COVID-19 patients out of the hospital.

DeSantis has been traveling the state to visit antibody clinics so people know that the state is running 21 sites offering the antibody cocktail should they get COVID-19. Twenty-one health sites the state has set up have treated about 45,000 people since mid-August when they got up and running, DeSantis said.

In Palm Beach County, about 200 people a day are getting the treatment at the state-run site.

The free, widely available treatment is changing the virus’ dynamic as more people understand they can get ahead of the virus, instead of waiting at home to see if the virus hits hard enough to require a hospital visit, DeSantis said.

Florida Hospital Association’s Mary Mayhew touts ‘very encouraging trends’ for COVID-19

Florida hospitals are seeing “very encouraging trends” in hospital admissions for COVID-19, Florida Hospital Association President Mary Mayhew told a national TV audience Thursday morning.

She credited Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ frequent promotion of monoclonal antibody treatments, and his efforts to make them widely available in Florida, as among the reasons for recent improvement and for hope that the summer surge may be waning in the Sunshine State.

Mayhew started out on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show Friday noting Florida has been on the front-end of the nation’s summer surge of COVID-19, with “a dramatic increase in hospitalizations over a seven week period.”

Pandemic Once Again Reducing Tampa International Airport Flights

Airlines are again reducing daily flights as bookings fall due to the surge in coronavirus cases. The slowdown is affecting flights at Tampa International Airport.

Nationwide, the number of airline travelers fell more than 6% in August. Those numbers weren't nearly as drastic at Tampa International.

Airport spokeswoman Emily Nipps says the airport had a busy summer as the pandemic seemed to wane, but the number of travelers have trended downward recently.

"We are still — this September doing a lot better than last September. But we are still down from our 2019 numbers," Nipps said. "So we are definitely seeing the zest for flying cooling off a little bit."