1/ States with highest COVID death rates during the Delta wave (updated).
At top of the list is Florida, where Ron DeSantis blew off warnings of summer surge, prevented local officials from taking common-sense protective measures, and pandered to those spreading disinformation.
2/ On June 22, DeSantis participated in a segment with Laura Ingraham on Fox that was *all about* mocking experts for predicting a summer surge.
After the right-wing Post Millennial posted the clip, Gov's spokeswoman promoted it as "just the facts!!!"
3/ From June 22 to July 13, the number of Floridians hospitalized with COVID rose from 1,861 to 3,549.
But on July 13, DeSantis's "data/research" guy said FL surge "hasn't been significant and it likely won't last very long."
Hospitalizations kept rising, hit 17,367 on Aug. 23.
4/ Throughout July, DeSantis & team downplayed importance of rising cases by arguing that hospitalizations and deaths had gone up only "a little" in the UK (30:10 ).
They didn't account for fact that vax rate for 50+ folks was *20 points higher* in the UK.
5/ At the time DeSantis made the July 19 statement above relying on the fact that hospitalizations had risen only "a little" in the *UK* ...
... hospitalizations had already risen to over 5,000 in *Florida*, compared to under 2,000 when DeSantis went on Ingraham's show in June.
6/ On Sept. 10, DeSantis's spokeswoman promoted a video he recorded with Jay Bhattacharya on July 29.
Back in 2020, Bhattacharya became a Fox celebrity scientist by establishing himself as the go-to "COVID is substantially less lethal than the flu" guy. hoover.org/research/quest…
7/ By time of DeSantis interview with Bhattacharya, COVID had killed over 600,000 Americans, and a new record COVID surge was underway in Florida, with hospitalizations having already risen from under 2,000 in late-June to over 9,000 (on their way to over 17,000 in August).
8/8 But during that July 30 interview, DeSantis and Bhattacharya steadfastly ignored the deadly and preventable surge underway in Florida, and DeSantis's spokeswoman made no mention of it when she promoted the interview in Sept.
Meanwhile, Fl's record Delta toll kept rising:
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