MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida snapped this week at a reporter asking whether masks would be a way to keep children secure in a state that currently has the highest number of hospitalizations for Covid-19 and children, than any elsewhere in the country.
He blamed Biden’s reported inability to stop spreading of the coronavirus across the border when the president suggested that governors such as Mr. DeSantis could or “help” fight the coronavirus or “get out of the way.”
The governor also announced a brand new state rulethat was promulgated on Friday, that will combat the local school mask requirements by allowing parents to apply for vouchers for private schools in the event that they believe the rules constitute “harassment.”
He is a very strong man. DeSantis has not bowed in his handling of the epidemic, refusing to modify his approach or put restrictions on it despite an uncontrolled spread and spike in hospitalizations — a strategy that has forced him to take the greatest risk of his burgeoning political career.
The governor of Florida reopened the state’s economy this spring and maintained it in that manner in the face of coronavirus epidemics that flooded hospitals. The governor was then celebrated when a state-wide vaccination campaign was launched and the life of Florida was back to normal.
Then Mr. DeSantis has resorted to gambling. A new strain of the virus has resulted in an unprecedented number of hospitalizations due to Covid-19. These has slowed some of Florida’s public and economic health benefits and once again increased the stakes on DeSantis. DeSantis.
If the current surge overtakes hospitals, rendering nurses and doctors unable to adequately care for the younger, almost completely non-vaccinated patients who fill the emergency room and in intensive care facilities Mr. DeSantis’s status on the list of Republican Party front-runner with higher ambitions could be in grave risk of being in serious.
If Florida is able to overcome another peak, with its healthcare system and economy in good shape If it does, the Mr. deSantis’s game and the deadly pandemic might be a model of how to live with a virus that’s likely to not completely vanish.
Mr. DeSantis was successful in suing against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the demand that cruise passengers be vaccinated. However, some cruise lines kept the requirement in place. He is opposed to requiring vaccinations for hospital workers, arguing that it will cause a worsening of shortages of staff.
“We can either have a free society, or we can have a biomedical security state,” Mr. DeSantis said this week in Panama City, Fla. “And I’m here to assure you that in Florida is a free state. Individuals will be able the best option for them.”
Florida is the nation’s top hospitalization rate and has the second-highest number of cases that have recently occurred, second only to Louisiana. The number of infections has been increasing across the country but with alarming levels within the South. A lot of governors have been unwilling to enforce new regulations or require masks.
In the United States, deaths and hospitalizations remain below levels seen in the past partly due to the fact that the majority of Americans who are 65 and over are completely vaccine-free. Deaths in Florida remain significantly lower than the previous peaks However, the mortality rate could be delayed by hospitalizations and cases by a few weeks.
Updated
Aug. 7, 2021, 5:39 p.m. ET
“Nobody knows where this is going to end,” said Dr. Marissa J. Levine Director of the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice at the University of South Florida. “The approach has almost been one of denial that this is a big deal.”
The late Mr. DeSantis has argued that prioritizing vaccinations of older adults like his administration have reduced the death rate. The same is true of the availability of treatment options for certain patients, such as monoclonal antibody, which Mr. DeSantis has spent a significant portion of this week advocating. The governor has always encouraged Floridians to be vaccinated even though there is no longer any open events at vaccination centers as he used to do earlier this year.
Around half of Florida residents have been fully vaccinated, and around 59% have had at minimum one dose, numbers that are about similar to the national average, and are far superior to states in the Southern states.
Florida has never enacted a state-wide mask requirement. Mayors had local mandates for masks year ago. A new law from the state prohibits masks now, however some cities have restored mask regulations within government buildings, and also mandated vaccinations for their staff. The state of emergency Mr. DeSantis first declared in response to the outbreak ended in June. Since then, he’s not responded to calls to bring it back, even though it might make it easier for hospitals to recruit nurses and doctors.
In essence in a nutshell, Mr. DeSantis saidthat the world will continue to go on as the pandemic rages also.
“We knew this is something that you’re going to have to live with,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters on Friday, expressing the sentiments that a lot of public officials are starting to voice, both either in public or privately as the pandemic rages through the second season of its outbreak.
Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.
Mr. DeSantis’s opposition to the new regulations, including for schoolchildren who aren’t yet old enough to be vaccinated has led to an argument this week with Vice President. Biden. The governor claimed that the president was “helping facilitate” the virus spread by not taking steps to secure his U.S. border with Mexico. “Until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about Covid from you,” Mr. DeSantis stated.
When asked by Mr. DeSantis, he said: “I’m not sure.. Biden quipped: “Governor who?”
“I’m not surprised that Biden doesn’t remember me,” the vice president said. DeSantis responded on Friday. “The question is, what else has he forgotten?”
Democrats have attacked the governor accusing him of being irresponsible, and accusing that he is seeking to transfer blame on the treatment this pandemic. The rise in the summer of 2014 caused a setback for Ms. DeSantis in public opinion polls, however his approval ratings generally improved following the event.
The Mr. DeSantis, who faces his re-election in the coming year has utilized the tit as a way to get tat on the president during campaign fund-raising pitches. (He raised money on the state of Michigan the previous Monday According to the Detroit News reported.) Then, he blasted “media hysteria” over the increase in Covid cases and downplayed the dire state of affairs in hospitals, even in the midst of a Florida Hospital Association warned about the overcrowding that comes with the disease.
“Hospitals are eliminating right now any procedure services that can be scheduled and postponed that are not emergent,” Mary Mayhew, chief executive and president of the association. She previously served as an employee in Mr. DeSantis’s office, which oversees nursing homes. “They’re doing that in order to redeploy staff” to Covid-19 cases, she explained.
Particularly worrying is particular concern is the Memorial Healthcare System in Broward County located just north of Miami. In the week that was in operation, it was home to over 1,600 people which is a record, and almost 600 of them having Covid-19. The hospital system generally doesn’t take care of greater than 1400 patients any one time.
The rout of sick patients caused Memorial hospitals to create space for beds in the cafeteria as well as a conference center, and auditorium according to doctor. Marc L. Napp Chief Medical Officer of Memorial hospitals, told a news conference. “So far, I’m happy to say that we’ve been able to provide that care, but it’s not without a stress on the system,” Dr. Napp said.
There are four conferences that have been canceled their plans to gather in Orlando the Orlando’s Mayor Jerry Demings of Orange County stated, a financial impact of $44 million.
The recent reports of overcrowded hospitals and the more transmissible Delta variant have led more people to be vaccines, according to local and state officials. In Jacksonville the region that was that was the hardest hit by the latest outbreak, Berlinda Gatlin, 55 who was first vaccinated on Thursday. She was worried that one of her children could carry the virus back home when they begin school next week.
“I’m not happy with the governor,” she declared about the governor. DeSantis’s stance against masks in schools.
Gabriel Molina, 30, told me he waited around for the other children within his family to be vaccines first. When he noticed they experienced no adverse side negative effects, he decided to get the shot for himself, in order that he could lower the chance of getting his son, who is only a toddler, sick.
“I have a 3-year-old boy I’m concerned about,” the man said.
He was also worried by the growing hostility of other people towards masks and the fear that the disease isn’t disappearing.
“I think this is going to be a new normal,” he declared.
