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Florida Gov. Rick Scott to feds: Help us fight Zika

 
Published Aug. 22, 2016

On his third visit to Miami's Wynwood neighborhood since the Zika virus outbreak, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday repeated his plea that Washington help Florida respond to the nation's first outbreak of the infectious disease, even as he fended off accusations that he's not disclosing new cases quickly enough.

"We are still asking the federal government to be a partner in this," said Scott, who asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to send an additional 5,000 Zika antibody tests and 10,000 prevention kits to Florida — an order that federal officials have promised to fill by Tuesday.

State health officials say the virus has begun spreading locally in Miami-Dade County, first in a mile-square area of Wynwood and, most recently, in a 1.5-square-mile section of Miami Beach.

Scott said the state is "working hard" to fight the virus and provide the resources it can. He appeared at a roundtable meeting in the De Hostos Senior Center in Wynwood with U.S. Reps. Frederica Wilson — a Democrat — and Carlos Curbelo, a Republican, as well as Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine.

But the bipartisan push for federal Zika dollars quickly fell apart. Levine, a Democrat who earlier on Monday accused the Republican governor of playing politics with Zika and keeping the city in the dark about the number of local infections, confronted the governor.

"It's important that myself, the city manager, our counterparts at the county are getting timely, accurate information as fast as possible," Levine said. "As you know, we have our constituents. We have our businesses. We have all the major areas we have to deal with. We've just got to have that information.

"I hope that after this meeting," he continued, "we can be assured by you and your team that we will get information as soon as possible."

Scott responded to Levine that the state has a responsibility to ensure that the information it issues on Zika is "timely and accurate."

After the meeting, the governor criticized Levine for not returning his telephone calls and failing to attend any of the community roundtables the governor had held on Zika in Miami-Dade prior to Friday's announcement that the virus was spreading in Miami Beach.

"Everybody's had the opportunity to participate," Scott said.

But the county mayor — who has participated in the governor's community meetings prior to the first local Zika outbreak being reported on July 29 — jumped in, echoing Levine's criticisms.

"Everything's not rosy, Governor," Gimenez said to Scott, who was seated near him. "There are times when communication has broken down a little bit and we want to make sure that doesn't happen. We want to make sure we are all on the same page, and we are all communicating the same thing. We are all Floridians."

Florida has 37 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus, according to the state health department. State Surgeon General Celeste Philip said there were no new locally transmitted cases to report on Monday. There were seven new travel-related cases, with four in Miami-Dade, two in Osceola and one involving a pregnant woman.

She added that the Wynwood area already has seen improvement after weeks of aerial spraying for adult mosquitoes and their eggs.

"So far in Wynwood," she said, "we've seen that we've gone several weeks without any new cases."

Florida Agricultural Commissioner Adam Putnam said the state has trapped and tested 32,000 mosquitoes statewide, including 6,000 in Miami-Dade, and none have we returned positive for Zika virus.

"That's a good thing," he said. "We do not want to find any positive finds in the mosquito population."

During the Wynwood meeting, Scott promised Miami-Dade that the state is sending an additional $5 million to help offset the county's costs for increased mosquito control efforts in response to Zika, including aerial spraying in Wynwood and trucks and backpack foggers in Miami Beach.

"I'm very happy to hear that there's a check in the mail. We'll be waiting for it," responded Gimenez, who wants $6 million from the state to reimburse the county for the additional costs of fighting the local Zika outbreak.

Gimenez said the county has launched an aggressive response with more than 100 workers in the field every day dedicated to mosquito control.

Last week, Scott announced a second area in Miami-Dade with active transmission of the virus by mosquitoes on Miami Beach between Eighth and 28th streets, and Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean — the heart of the region's tourism industry. Federal health officials issued an unprecedented advisory, telling pregnant women to avoid the tourist destination — and consider postponing travel to Miami-Dade County altogether.

The governor has yet to visit Miami Beach since announcing the news that Zika was spreading in the resort city. Scott's absence was criticized on Monday by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, who held a press conference alongside Levine, the Miami Beach mayor, at an Alton Road café.

"He isn't planning on coming to Miami Beach, which is astonishing. I would extend an invitation on behalf of the mayor," said Wasserman Schultz, who has criticized her Republican colleagues in Congress for failing to fund an emergency appropriation requested by President Barack Obama in February to fight Zika.

Wasserman Schultz and Levine also criticized Scott for providing insufficient information to local leaders when he announced the news that Zika was spreading on the beach.

"This issue is serious," Levine said. "To play politics with people's lives is wrong, and there's no place for that. Information must be timely."

Asked if he had been "blindsided" by the state, Levine said yes.

"He not only blindsided me — he blindsided our administration, the county administration. I think he blindsided everybody," Levine said.

Five people have contracted the disease from mosquitoes in Miami Beach over the past several weeks, including two Miami-Dade residents and tourists from New York, Texas and Taiwan.

Pregnant women who have visited the identified area of Miami Beach since July 14 were advised to consult with their doctor and consider being tested for Zika. The state department of health is offering free tests to all expectant mothers in Florida.

With mosquitoes now spreading the virus across Biscayne Bay from Wynwood, the fight to contain the Aedes aegypti species most capable of transmitting the disease will be much more challenging.

Miami Beach has a larger population than Wynwood, making the disease's spread more likely. But the environment also presents obstacles for reducing mosquito populations.

Aerial spraying cannot be conducted amid the high-rise buildings and sea breezes of Miami Beach, CDC Director Tom Frieden said, because the airplanes fly low, about 100 feet above the ground, and the pesticide mists likely will be blown off target.

"The inability to use aerial spraying there means we will be restricted to ground-based technologies, like backpack spraying," he said.

The CDC has an Emergency Response Team in Miami working with the Florida Department of Health to investigate local cases of Zika, Frieden noted. And he noted that a combination of aerial spraying and backpack fogging in Wynwood has been effective.

Despite the growing number of Zika cases, however, Frieden has continued to assure the public that the vast majority of local transmissions hit a "dead end" after one or two people.

Miami Herald staff writer Joey Flechas contributed to this report.