Thread by @lesleyabravanel

This exceptional editorial is a MUST READ for anyone with half a brain in Florida, as well as those with children, parents, grandparents and loved ones in Florida. I'll thread the entire thing here because some people may not be able to read it in its entirety and it must be read

https://twitter.com/orlandosentinel/status/1454026324041998337

Florida’s summer of suffering was also a summer of silence for Ron DeSantis. The governor had nearly nothing to say about his state’s lengthy run as No. 1 in the nation in COVID cases, No. 1 in hospitalizations and No. 1 in deaths. Instead, the governor held almost daily news

conferences intended to burnish his presidential bona fides among the MAGA crowd, and boost his presidential ambitions. Through it all, the governor pointedly ignored the elephant in the room: That Florida — his state, his responsibility — was the epicenter for a deadly new

COVID outbreak caused by the delta variant. With numbers finally falling, DeSantis now has the gall, the nerve, to take a victory lap. “Florida Reaches Lowest Case Rate in the Nation,” trumpeted the headline of a Wednesday news release, which went on to say, “As a result of

Governor Ron DeSantis’ leadership and our data-driven approach free of mandates, the State of Florida has one of the lowest COVID-19 daily average case rates in the last 7 days per 100,000 residents in the United States.” Florida led the nation in case rates for much of the

summer, and our governor was silent. Well, not totally silent. He did rail against mask and vaccine mandates, measures intended to prevent people from falling ill.
Now, a governor whose sole contribution to fighting the outbreak was to expand antibody treatments for people after

they got infected is taking full credit for the decline in cases. As others have already noted, it’s like a firefighter tossing a bucket of water on a house that’s already been burned to the ground and then declaring victory. What a fraud. What a phony. It’s so transparent,

but far too many gullible Floridians and complicit politicians are going to buy and echo DeSantis’ savior rubbish. Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez already has. Here’s an actual fact: Between the start of July and the end of October, about 21,000 people died of COVID in Florida,

according to Johns Hopkins University data. Those four deadly, tragic months accounted for one in every three of the total COVID deaths — nearly 60,000 victims — since the pandemic began 20 months ago.
Compare that to California, a warm-weather state with nearly twice the

population of Florida and a governor who believes in public health. California had just 8,600 deaths during that same summer surge, according to Johns Hopkins, representing about 11% of its total COVID deaths since the pandemic began. Another fact: At one point during the surge

Florida had more than 17,000 people hospitalized with COVID. And California, with twice the population? Its peak was fewer than 9,000. Florida’s hospitals were under siege, prompting the head of the Florida Hospital Association — Mary Mayhew, DeSantis’ one-time secretary of

health — to label the surge a “crisis,” with half the patients between 25 and 55 years old. As we’ve said before, DeSantis was right to ramp up the availability of antibody treatment sites for Floridians. It probably saved lives and prevented some hospitalizations.
But the

governor is now trying to draw a direct and dishonest line between those treatments and both falling hospitalizations and cases. Antibody treatments can be effective at keeping already infected people from falling seriously ill, but they have nothing to do with the plummeting

number of positive coronavirus cases. That’s what’s driving the dramatic fall in hospitalizations, not antibody treatments given to already infected people. Johns Hopkins charts show the rise and fall of cases and hospitalizations are a mirror image. There’s a lot DeSantis might

have done to legitimately claim credit for saving lives and preventing suffering. He could have made another major push for Floridians to get vaccinated. But he didn’t, possibly because his Republican Party is rapidly aligning itself with the anti-vaxxer movement. Plus, he hired

a surgeon general who’s a vaccine skeptic. DeSantis is now hesitating on booster shots, which may account for why Florida ranks No. 33 among states in seniors getting boosters.He could have given local governments, including school boards, the flexibility to make their own

decisions about mandatory masking based on local conditions. But he didn’t, choosing instead to make masks a cultural wedge issue. He could have at least acknowledged the COVID crisis his state was facing and urged his constituents to act thoughtfully and responsibly.

But he didn’t, calculating that ignorance was political bliss. And now, the do-nothing governor is trying to claim credit for this surge coming to an end.

It is DeSantis’ final and most essential command — to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. How Orwellian. #RemoveRon