This is a recap of some of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida.
The news regarding COVID-19 infections improved for a third straight day. On Thursday, the state reported under 13,720 new infections and the weekly average trend declined to just under 14,500 daily cases over the past week.
On a related note, for the third day in a row Florida had its best day to expand vaccination efforts throughout the state. Just over 56,000 immunizations with a first dose took place and around 11,000 Floridians receiving a second and final dose of a COVID vaccine. The 67,000 vaccinations on Thursday were 7,000 higher than the prior day and now exceeds the state’s, targeted near-term goal. The Florida Department of Health’s tracker now shows 702,681 Floridians who’ve received at least a first dose of a COVID vaccine.
Governor DeSantis called out big tech censorship on Thursday specifically citing the deflatforming of Parler. He stated, "What really bothered me was how they decapitated this company. You always said hey, it’s a market, you don’t like Twitter, create your own competitor. Well, they did that. This was a coordinated assault on a company that was trying to compete. Big Tech, could actually suppress this information, and that is just simply OK?. This could signal antitrust action to be taken by the state against companies responsible including Amazon, who provided web hosting services."
Lastly, FPL has retired its last coal fired plant. The Indiantown Cogeneration Plant was last supplying power to the grid on December 31st and will remain offline. All remaining FPL plants are nuclear, natural gas, or solar-powered.
Photo by: LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI/AFP/Getty Images