Post #651858

2023-03-23 19:06 UTC

I called the interview line for the Florida Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) earlier today about my food benefits case. They have a very important automated message that every caller must hear before they can access menu options. It seems that many benefits-related interviews are not being conducted at this time due to... staff shortages related to Covid-19. Therefore, in many cases, for Medicaid, SNAP, and other forms of public assistance in the state of Florida, people who are typically required to be interviewed are getting automatic &quot;approved!&quot; stamps, assuming they made it past the initial application process. Isn&#39;t that something. Covid-19? In Florida?? STILL??? What would our beloved transgender-hating, antivax, science-and-evidence-denying state &quot;surgeon general&quot; Dr. Joseph Ladapo say? What would Governor Meatball say?? Hopefully, this never gets out. What a PR disaster it could be. Luckily, the sick and poor are also lazy and stupid. They won&#39;t tell.

Replies (2)

@JoParkerBear@universeodon.com 2023-03-23 20:38

I decided to look at the state health department's site to see what Covid data they are still making available. What I found is quite interesting, even stunning. It's the disparity in positivity rates between counties. Florida is a massive state, so it makes sense that some areas would be worse off than others, but this is pretty wild (to me, a not doctor or data scientist person or even an expert in Florida geography). There are a number of counties with positivity rates below 5%. Glades County has a positivity rate of just 2.6%. Impressive because Franklin County is reporting a positivity rate of 20.8%! Plenty of counties in the teens. My county is at 6.5% now, which isn't great, but it sure is better than others. Scroll about midway down to see the table with the individual county data. http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf

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@raemahoney@mastodon.social 2023-03-23 20:59

@JoParkerBear@universeodon.com "Governor Meatball" - I love it!

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