“Isolation kills too” has been the slogan for Florida Caregivers for Compromise ever since the group formed last year, when families started noticing their loved ones' decline in long-term care during the lockdown.

​Now, 300 yellow signs bearing those words and the names of long-term care residents currently in isolation or who have passed away, are on the front lawn of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee. The group’s founder, Mary Daniel, put them up this week with the help of some volunteers.

“I actually wrote all of the names on them myself. I said their name out loud as I did that. And everytime I see it, it’s incredibly moving,” Daniel said. “Because they represent not only an individual who had a full life and who is due the respect and honor as they close their life out, but it represents all of their families.”

Those include many we’ve heard from over the past year. There’s the love story of Ken and Ginny Millett, who were married 50 years before Ginny passed away in isolation.

Then there’s Jenny Thombleson Reid, whose father John Thombleson also died in isolation - his death certificate stating failure to thrive as cause of death.

And of course there’s Daniel herself, thrust into the spotlight after taking a job as a dishwasher at her husband’s assisted living facility in Jacksonville. It was her only way in to see him, and the media attention she got helped land her yet another job - a member of the Governor’s long-term care task force, where Daniel helped craft the guidance for a limited reopening last September. 

“It’s really something. I’ve said it for a long time. I feel like I’ve been working here my entire life to get here and be this advocate,” Daniel said. “And so I’m honored to do it for so many people.  And I hope it comes to an end very soon and I’m out of a job.”

The “Isolation kills too” signs will be on display at the Capitol until Sunday.

Daniel said they will then make their way to several other cities across the state.