Daily US Times: The Mayor of Orlando is asking residents to conserve water because liquid oxygen, used to treat the community’s water supply, is needed to treat the surge of coronavirus patients in the community.
“Nationally, the demand for liquid oxygen is extremely high as the priority for its use is to save lives,” Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a Facebook post on Friday.
To reduce demand, the Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) asked customers to immediately limit watering their landscapes and lawns, repair leaking faucets and toilets, take short showers, stop performing “non-critical activities” like pressure washing, stop washing their vehicles and the municipal utility said in a notice.
OUC said in a statement that it is “difficult to determine” how long shortages of liquid oxygen will last, “because it is tied to the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in hospitals with oxygen.”
According to the utility company, when those hospitalizations decline, the liquid oxygen supply will likely increase.
The mayor said in his post: “This is another impact of the virus continuing to surge in our community. And it’s another result of what happens when residents do not get the vaccine and become critically ill, needing medical support and treatment.”
Florida reported 150,118 coronavirus cases in the past week, Florida’s health department data shows, just shy of the state’s highest total for a seven-day period in the pandemic.
The record was set the week before, when Frolida reported 151,415 new Covid-19 cases.
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