Officials with Broward County Department of Health and the Florida Surgeon General’s Office have created a process to force-quarantine people who have not even tested positive for Coronavirus, according to a memo from inside the Broward County Department of Health obtained by NATIONAL FILE after a source filed a public information request. The March 27 memo written by Joshua D. Lenchus, shortly before he was named chief medical officer this month of Broward Health Medical Center, confirms that the process allows for a “Quarantine Order” to be issued for “Persons Under Investigation” who have not even tested positive. This scoop comes amid public outcry after we exposed Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry caught on tape discussing going into “family homes” and assisted living facilities to isolate people during the Coronavirus outbreak. Freedom protesters wielding petitions were shut out of the Broward Commissioners meeting on Tuesday.

“March 27, 2020

Colleagues,

I have worked with the Broward County Department of Health (“DOH”) and the Florida Surgeon General’s Office to create a process for issuing a “Quarantine Order” (or “Order”) for those patients who are unsafe to be let out of the hospital. This applies to patients who are “Persons Under Investigation” (“PUI”) or individuals who are positive for COVID-19 when such individuals wish to leave against medical advice (AMA).
1. Upon learning that a patient wishes to leave AMA, assess their disposition situation. a. If the patient is able to self-quarantine and follow discharge instructions, the patient may be allowed to leave but follow the AMA policy.

b. If the patient is not able to self-quarantine and follow discharge instructions, begin the process of obtaining a Quarantine Order and summon a security officer to be immediately assigned to the patient.

2. The following is the process for obtaining a quarantine order: a. Contact Mr. Mario Carranza, TB Surveillance Manager at the Florida Department of Health – Broward County (“DOH”) to inform him that you have a patient for whom a Quarantine Order is being requested. Mr. Carranza can be reached at: 954-298-1090.

b. Review the patient’s chart so that you can provide some basic information about the patient (name, DOB, date of presentation, chief complaint, initial exam findings paying particular attention to temperature, chest x-ray and CT scan, if performed, and indicate when the COVID-19 test was sent if the patient is a PUI).

c. There may be a couple of back-and-forth calls to finalize the information for the Quarantine Order, culminating in the DOH verbally informing you that the Order has been executed and will be hand-delivered to your facility.

d. A Quarantine Order is a legally enforceable action issued by the DOH under the auspices of the Florida Surgeon General pursuant to the Governor’s Executive Orders declaring a Public Health Emergency for COVID-19 in Florida. The patient is not being held under a Baker Act or Marchman Act. The duration of the Quarantine Order can vary, and the patient is to be held until the Order is lifted or expires.

e. A Quarantine Order can be lifted when a patient’s test results return negative if a PUI, or when the patient is able to self-quarantine.

f. If a patient’s test results return negative or if the patient is able to self-quarantine, contact Mr. Carranza to inform him of the patient’s status and ask that he initiate the process to lift the Quarantine Order.

g. Thereafter, the DOH may contact you for additional information until the “Lift Order” is executed.

h. Once the DOH verbally confirms the Lift Order, the patient may be safely discharged.

i. The written Lift Order will be hand-delivered to your facility.

j. The Quarantine and Lift Orders are to be placed in the patient’s medical record and all other medical record documentation should be followed.

Joshua D. Lenchus, DO, RPh, FACP, SFHM Regional Medical Officer”

500 DOCTORS SIGN LETTER WARNING ABOUT THE NEGATIVE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF THE SHUTDOWNS
by Kevin Ryan

Five hundred doctors signed a letter to President Trump yesterday voicing their concern over the health consequences of the shutdown that have gone largely unreported by the media.

“We write to you today to express our alarm over the exponentially growing negative health consequences of the national shutdown,” the letter begins.

The doctors list a series of problems related to cancelled medical care, including:

• 150,000 Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine screening that hasn’t happened.
• Millions who have missed routine medical care that will lead to health problems including heart disease, preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse.
• Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%.
• Liquor sales have increased 300-600%.
• Millions of well-child check-ups have been missed.
• Family relationships have become frayed.
• The letter also gives examples of several patients (named only by their initials) who are suffering because of the lockdowns, including
• A woman who had chronic but previously stable health conditions. Her elective hip replacement was delayed, which caused her to become nearly sedentary, resulting in a pulmonary embolism in April.
• A mother and father who lost their jobs and are struggling with depression.
• An elderly nursing home patient who had a small stroke and would have otherwise recovered but, because of the shutdown, “he has had no physical or speech therapy, and no visitors. He has lost weight, and is deteriorating rather than making progress.”

The letter continues:

“We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients. The downstream health effects… are being massively under-estimated and under-reported.”

“It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown… The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.

“Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise.”

The media largely ignored the letter, with some pointing out that the doctor who signed the letter first is a conservative who prescribed hydroxychloroquine to two of her patients, though “with good results”, according to AP.

Fox News did cover the letter, however, and interviewed four other doctors who were involved with it, asking if they thought the indirect effects of the shutdowns outweighed the likely direct consequences of lifting them. All four said that they believe they do.

"The very initial argument ... which sounded reasonable three months ago, is that in order to limit the overwhelmed patient flux into hospitals that would prevent adequate care, we needed to spread out the infections and thus the deaths in specific locales that could become hotspots, particularly New York City,” Dr. Mark McDonald, a psychiatrist, said. “It was a valid argument at the beginning based on the models that were given, but what we've seen now over the last three months is that no city outside of New York has even been significantly stressed.”

The doctors pointed out that hospitals “are not only not overwhelmed, they're actually being shut down,” including the Los Angeles area hospital where the letter’s organizer, Dr. Simone Gold, works.

“The technicians in the ER have been cut by 50 percent.”

SOURCES:
=AT1GNvp_gxn7QjpdVY9oXmXpD4R9EY56tmYaxfa_6GRyV9dcO HM0ipjLX8HcE-76xhOi-rkQrfSaQ7iVVorf43GYijFDLK8NvY-djx14qc3cZVCeQPUyUkZY6yNi1K8iAREfh21p8bjxua1e0NHoU iX2UHtVu-mIVPS8kh-pEP1mmblfM5Z2gD_RCczBGMNa7g0r7ix5on_rPKST0lej]https://www.scribd.com/document/462319362/A-Doctor-a-Day-Letter-Signed
=AT1GNvp_gxn7QjpdVY9oXmXpD4R9EY56tmYaxfa_6GRyV9dcO HM0ipjLX8HcE-76xhOi-rkQrfSaQ7iVVorf43GYijFDLK8NvY-djx14qc3cZVCeQPUyUkZY6yNi1K8iAREfh21p8bjxua1e0NHoU iX2UHtVu-mIVPS8kh-pEP1mmblfM5Z2gD_RCczBGMNa7g0r7ix5on_rPKST0lej]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doctors-raise-alarm-about-health-effects-of-continued-coronavirus-shutdown
=AT1GNvp_gxn7QjpdVY9oXmXpD4R9EY56tmYaxfa_6GRyV9dcO HM0ipjLX8HcE-76xhOi-rkQrfSaQ7iVVorf43GYijFDLK8NvY-djx14qc3cZVCeQPUyUkZY6yNi1K8iAREfh21p8bjxua1e0NHoU iX2UHtVu-mIVPS8kh-pEP1mmblfM5Z2gD_RCczBGMNa7g0r7ix5on_rPKST0lej]https://apnews.com/4ee1a3a8d631b454f645b2a8d9597de7

2020 ELECTIONS

Biden: ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black’

The remarks came during an at-times contentious interview on “The Breakfast Club” that aired Friday morning.