The federal government is sending hundreds of ventilators to Florida to help deal with rising COVID-19 cases.
The Biden Administration said it sent the ventilators per the request of Florida hospitals that have been overrun with COVID patients. Flagler Hospital will receive ventilators as well. Gov. Ron DeSantis said he had no knowledge of the ventilators arriving.
Dr. David Rice is the Chief Physician Executive at Flagler Health. He joined us with more.
UNF Campus Safety
Students are headed back to the University of North Florida (UNF) for the fall semester without a mask mandate. UNF faculty rallied outside Thursday morning's UNF Board of Trustees meeting on the campus, calling for stronger safety protocols as the fall term begins. Masks at UNF are strongly encouraged but not required. For more, we spoke to faculty union president Nicholas DeVilliers.
Feeding Northeast Florida
More than 76,000 children experience food insecurity in our region, meaning one in five children will head back to school hungry on the First Coast. Feeding Northeast Florida, the region’s largest nonprofit foodbank, has a plan for young students to meet their nutritional needs. Heather Gosendi, Director of Marketing & Communications for the organization, gave us more details on the program.
Open Heart(ed)
Barbara Colacello of “Bab’s lab,” is a local artist with a new, provocative one woman show. It’s called “Open Heart(ed),” and it debuts this Friday in the CoRK District. She spoke to us about what audiences can expect.
Patrick Cantin can be reached at newsteam@wjct.org or on Twitter.
