Gov. DeSantis turns to quacks, bloggers and deniers to spin Covid-19 strategy | Randy Schultz
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Apparently, Gov. DeSantis knows as much about constitutional law as he does about public health.
During an interview with Fox News, the governor urged Electoral College members in Michigan and Pennsylvania to ignore their states' popular vote for Joe Biden and choose President Trump. He cited Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
DeSantis is a lawyer, but don’t call him for advice. Those states don’t allow “faithless electors” to ignore the will of the people and this year, the Supreme Court upheld such laws. So the governor, who supported the self-proclaimed “law and order candidate,” called for lawbreaking in the name of a Trump victory.
Fortunately, DeSantis' pandering rant doesn’t affect Florida. The governor was just placating the man who won’t accept defeat any more than he has accepted the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the governor’s retreat from science does endanger Floridians.
A report this week in the Miami Herald confirmed what I have been writing about: DeSantis wants to create herd immunity in Florida from the virus. Supposedly, this would occur when enough people have become infected to protect those who haven’t contracted the disease.
DeSantis' spokesman said the governor “believes the virus is containable through a vaccine (which is many months off, at best) and in focusing the resources first on those most vulnerable to complications due to COVID. Protect the elderly and those with serious health risks — and the virus becomes far more manageable.”
Such an approach would explain why DeSantis in late September took Florida to Phase 3 reopening even though the metrics didn’t support it. Such an approach would explain why DeSantis prevented cities and counties from enforcing mask mandates on individuals.
The problem is that no credible public health expert believes that herd immunity would work.
“I sincerely hope that Florida doesn’t go down that path,” Tom Inglesby told the Herald. He’s director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It’s pretty clear that a small minority of people have been infected at this point.”
Herd immunity threshold is 60 percent of a population. About 20 percent of Floridians have contracted COVID-19.
“If political leaders decide to go down that trail and encourage people to get infected,” Inglesby said, “extraordinary numbers of people are going to die from this illness before immunity is achieved.”
But DeSantis is taking direction from Scott Atlas, the neuroradiologist who took over Trump’s coronavirus task force and favors herd immunity. And if deaths rise, DeSantis has a plan for that.
Last week, the Herald reported that the DeSantis administration allowed a conservative blogger to examine a month’s worth of death certificates from COVID-19 cases. Based on that review, the blogger posted that Florida’s death toll of about 17,500 is too high.
The blogger has no medical training. DeSantis has refused to let reporters see those death certificates. Yet an untrained conspiracy theorist got them.
After prematurely declaring victory over the virus six months ago, DeSantis scrambled to defend the surge that followed. Now a third wave is coming and it’s even harder for DeSantis to portray himself as the governor who safely reopened the economy.
So expect DeSantis now to argue that deaths are overcounted, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes that they have been undercounted. That claim will have no more truth than the allegation that illegal votes made Biden the president-elect.
And now, the Herald reports, DeSantis has hired a “data analyst” who spreads COVID-19 falsehoods on sports message boards when not working as an Uber driver. The operator of an Ohio sports website called the man “a crackpot.” So Roger Stone wasn’t available?
As the financial markets showed Monday, with Biden promising a much stronger focus on the virus, better public health means a better economy. Recent labor demand, Wells Fargo said, is weaker as cases grow. Gasoline prices have dropped to a five-month low.
Few industries need renewed confidence in public health more than tourism and hospitality. Yet DeSantis' feckless policies will hurt Florida’s economy as he gears up to run for re-election in 2022 and for president in 2024.
According to news reports, DeSantis believes that Trump’s victory in Florida vindicates his approach. Herd immunity, though, wasn’t on the ballot. How many Floridians must get infected and die before DeSantis stops listening to quacks?
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