Your COVID booster is none of Gov. DeSantis’ business. His medical advice is dangerous | Opinion

Gov. Ron DeSantis is a shameless COVID vaccine denier — and a more dangerous one now that he’s taking the politically motivated quackery he spreads in Florida to the national stage.

He’s advising people to ignore the nation’s top experts — federal health officials who devote their lives to tracking, researching and approving vaccines and treatments of infectious diseases — and instead, to listen, well, to him.

The governor isn’t qualified to give medical advice — he’s not a doctor — but here he is again, dispensing plenty of misinformation, this time, on national television to raise his plummeting presidential profile.

He’s advising people under 65 not to get the COVID boosters that cover new variants for no good reason at all, except that he’s desperate for attention and pitching himself as a conservative warrior against vaccines.

As if the coronavirus distinguished between political affiliations, as politicians do.

As if his mismanagement of the COVID pandemic is something to be proud of, even though his state’s high rate of COVID-19 deaths and infection made national headlines.

In fact, the vast majority of people hospitalized in Florida — and the 87,141 who have died on his watch — had not been vaccinated. The biggest clusters of dead were in red Panhandle counties where people listened to his pandemic mishandling as if it were gospel.

His vaccine record also shows him to be a hypocrite.

When he was running for re-election in 2021 and vaccines were at a premium, he made them available to his wealthy donor class in at least two Florida locations and proclaimed that they “save lives.”

Then, he saw the political profit of standing against vaccine mandates.

Now running for the Republican presidential nomination, he claims they’re a “Big Pharma” scam, undermining vaccination as Florida leads the nation in COVID hospitalizations.

Once again, DeSantis injects politics into what should be a medical discussion and does the public a great disservice. Had he consistently delivered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s simple message that “vaccines are safe, effective and free,” many of the deaths in Florida could have been prevented.

Yes, vaccinated people still got infected, but their bodies were better equipped to fight it.

But DeSantis not only recklessly misleads on science, he attacks medical professionals for doing their jobs.

This pitiable politician is demonizing and threatening Dr. Anthony Fauci — who led this country out of the HIV epidemic and the COVID pandemic — with an investigation and criminal prosecution if he becomes president.

He also speaks menacingly of the CDC in an attempt to rewrite pandemic history to favor his many serious missteps in Florida.

DeSantis’ major blunder was getting rid of Florida’s credible surgeon general, Dr. Scott Rivkees — who alerted the public to the trend of the unvaccinated dying — to replace him anti-vaxxer Dr. Joseph Lapado. His research not only has been debunked by his peers, he also altered key findings of a study on COVID vaccine safety, as Politico reported.

So, let’s review: This country’s respected medical establishment — plus international gurus — are wrong, and DeSantis, who empowers known anti-vaxxers to support his misinformation, is right?

That’s about as likely as Big Foot relocating to the Miami River.

It’s political mythology spun for the sake of confusing and appealing to the least informed voters. It’s irresponsible. Just ask the families missing their dead, or the nurses who were the only humans to witness their last labored breath alone.

READ MORE: Insurance companies deny COVID booster to thousands of people every day. What to know

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Given the recent jump in COVID cases, I made an appointment to get my COVID-19 booster against new variants before fall and winter travel.

So far, I’ve kept myself safe from the virus.

Why take a huge risk of the potential long-term effects of full-on COVID that are very real — I’m seeing them in a child and adult in my family — when a quick shot to the arm could protect me from a worst-case scenario?

I, too, without even realizing it, had become so swarmed by the conservative noise against vaccines that, while I was first in line with the first two shots, I let the others slip by, opting to always mask when in close quarters with people at airports and on airplanes.

But I’ve asked for the advice of doctors, medical institutions like the Cleveland Clinic and a person-in-the-know who works with doctors at the prestigious University of Miami Medical School.

“Here, we have all gotten our boosters,” he said of medical professionals.

If experts are getting boosted, shouldn’t we do too?

DeSantis’ supporters love to boast that the governor isn’t afraid to show who he is.

On that point, we agree. He’s the guy who’ll put your life at risk for a boost in the polls.