Florida Begs For More Ventilators As COVID Ravages The South

The state of Texas is running out of hospital beds. Florida is begging the federal government for more ventilators. Arkansas is watching their hospitals fill up, as is Louisiana. Across the red states in the South, COVID is causing chaos and a tragic loss of life. Not only should this be a wake up call for people to protect themselves from the virus, but it also needs to be a wake up call about the dangers of ideologue Republican leadership. That's a major part of this crisis, and it has to be addressed, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The Delta variant is currently traveling all over the United States, causing an increase in the new number of COVID cases every single day. But nowhere in this country is it having a larger impact than the American South, these red states of which one I am sitting in right now, are absolutely blowing it. And of course, we have talked at length about Texas, about Florida, there's also Arkansas in the mix now, Louisiana is getting even worse, even though of course they have a Democratic governor. Things are still getting very bad in that red state and it's not showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, here is how bad things have gotten. The state of Florida over the weekend had to beg the federal government to send them 300 ventilators because they said that all of their stores, their supplies, were in use. We, we don't have enough ventilators anymore. We have hospitals here in the state of Florida, many of them at capacity, or almost at capacity.

Over in Texas, they're telling people you can't use the emergency room anymore. Don't have an emergency here. They're out of beds in many of the largest areas of the state. Arkansas came out and said, we're in a similar situation. Our hospitals are filling up. Louisiana is having the same thing, not necessarily at the same rate, but things are getting bad there. And folks, the biggest takeaway from this, obviously, if you can get the vaccine, get the vaccine, stop screwing around, protect yourself, at least in the best way you can. And if you cannot get the vaccine, please continue wearing a mask and socially distancing, do whatever you can on that front. But the other thing I want people to know, the other thing I want people to take away from this, is that this is a failure of Republican government, folks. And I don't want people to forget that. Yes, it's a tragedy. Yes, it's horrific that we have so many people dying down here in these red states.

But these Republican controlled states are letting it happen. Hell, in the case of Texas and Florida and even Arkansas for a little bit, they were cheering it on basically by saying, we will not allow any mask mandates. We will not mandate anything in our state. We're not going to let you protect each other. We're not going to let you protect kids. All three states have signed bans on mask mandates and Asa Hutchinson, Governor of Arkansas, says he regrets it now, but he says he can't do anything about it and it is what it is. This is a failure of Republican government. This is what Republican government gets you. When they ignore science and instead embrace ideology, but not just embracing ideology, folks, embracing the dumbest people in the Republican party. That's who they're listening to. That's who they're pandering to. And that is why we are seeing these cases explode all across the red states in the American South.