Thread by @opinion

And the pandemic winner is … Florida and its governor, Ron DeSantis.

Can anyone doubt it? As America tries to recover from the pandemic, psychologically as well as economically, Florida is way ahead of just about every other state in the U.S. trib.al/AR1mgQR

As of March, its unemployment rate was 4.7%, compared with New York’s 8.5% and California’s 8.3%.

The Census Bureau reports that more than 250,000 people moved to Florida last year, second only to Texas
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The reason, of course, is that in Florida, the pandemic is being treated as ancient history.

Are Covid-19 victims still dying in Florida? Yes. But the numbers are relatively low: 45 deaths on Wednesday, for instance trib.al/AR1mgQR

Throughout the pandemic, DeSantis has insisted on keeping the state open for business even as other states locked down for months at a time.

DeSantis was one of the last governors to issue a stay-at-home order, and one of the first to reopen trib.al/AR1mgQR

In Florida, schools remained open, despite opposition from teachers unions.

“Closing schools due to coronavirus is probably the biggest public health blunder in modern American history,” DeSantis said trib.al/AR1mgQR

DeSantis was vilified in the media, especially when Covid cases spiked last year.

Many public health officials predicted that his policies would be disastrous. His critics took to calling him #DeathSantis. But they were wrong trib.al/AR1mgQR

For whatever reason, the virus did not flatten Florida the way it did New York, Rhode Island or Arizona.

The nation’s third-most populous state ranks 20th in cases per capita and 27th in deaths per capita trib.al/AR1mgQR

Economic activity has followed.

Keith Rabois, the well-known venture capitalist, moved from Silicon Valley to Miami last year. “Lots of people are moving from the Bay Area and escaping jail,” he told an interviewer a few months ago trib.al/AR1mgQR

DeSantis’s strategy has created a gold rush atmosphere, as businesses from Spotify to Elliott open offices in Florida.

“OK guys, hear me out, what if we move Silicon Valley to Miami?” tweeted Delian Asparouhov.

Miami’s mayor responded: “How can I help?” trib.al/AR1mgQR

For restaurants, Florida has been nirvana.

“We opened Carbone in Miami on Jan. 23. On Jan. 23 in New York, you couldn’t eat inside a restaurant,” Jeff Zalaznick said. The restaurateur hopes to have 20 restaurants in South Florida by the end of 2022 trib.al/AR1mgQR

“We’re really thinking about Miami and South Florida as our second home base...building out a footprint similar to the one we have in New York City,” Zalaznick said.

Several hundred Major Food Group employees have moved to Florida to work for the company trib.al/AR1mgQR

By now, transplanted New Yorkers & Californians have many colleagues who have also moved to Florida.

“I love the energy down here, and the atmosphere — it’s as if the pandemic never happened,” said Bill Carmody, head of Susman Godfrey's New York office trib.al/AR1mgQR

Democrats moved to Florida during the pandemic, too.

One of them told @opinion_joe that when the pandemic first struck, he was convinced the governor’s strategy was crazy. “Now it looks like he’s the one who got it right,” he said trib.al/AR1mgQR

Which is exactly what DeSantis is likely to tell the nation in 2024 if he runs for president.

It may seem awfully premature, but there's no question that DeSantis hopes to capitalize on his pandemic record to make the case that his policies actually work trib.al/AR1mgQR

It could have turned out much differently, of course.

Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota took the same approach as DeSantis; more than 20% of her state’s population caught the virus. Somehow, for whatever reason, his enormous gamble paid off trib.al/AR1mgQR