If you remember Der DeathSantis attacked hard anyone who disagreed with his covid denial. When the vaccines were first made available the governor made sure his wealthy friends got first chance to get them, making sure distribution sites were next to or in wealthy enclaves. Then he held a sort of lottery where the pharmacy / company that gave him the largest donation would have exclusive rights to give out the vaccine. That was the Publix chain of grocery stores, which are found by and run on “Christian” principles. When state officials challenged his views of forcing companies to violate federal guidelines, he fired them and used the state legal authorities to attack and harm the whistleblowers. When the state medical community would go along with him he fired them, and hired one of the Frontline doctors that were scamming the maga by charging $90 or more for a short video medical consultation and then charged them for an Ivermectin prescription. This was led by the “semen doctor” who claimed demons were having sex with people leaving demon semen seed in them causing all sorts of illnesses. His new quack head of the Florida health department is a complete anti-vaccine covid denying fraud who is now raking in almost $600,000 when he first took the position because Der DeathSantis forced a state university to make him their president. Not a bad gig, going from scamming random maga people to making over half a million a year just to parrot and provide pseudo-science reasons for what ever the governor proclaims. Hugs
In Florida, unlike the nation as a whole — and states like New York and California that Mr. DeSantis likes to single out — most people who died from Covid died after vaccines became available to all adults, not before. As the governor’s political positions began to shift, so did his state’s death rate, for the worse.
Mr. DeSantis and his aides have said that his opposition was to mandates, not to the vaccinations themselves. They say the governor only questioned the efficacy of the shots once it became evident that they did not necessarily prevent infection — which prompted him to criticize experts and the federal government.
Tapping into the Republican revolt against scientific authority made him a political star. But that revolt came with costs. “These were preventable deaths,” Dr. Rivkees, who resigned as Florida’s surgeon general in September 2021, said in a recent interview.
“But a close review by The New York Times of Florida’s pandemic response, including a new analysis of the data on deaths, hospitalizations and vaccination rates in the state, suggests that Mr. DeSantis’s account of his record leaves much out.” https://t.co/4LsHKr4pIW
Reminder that DeSantis was actually pro-vaccine before he was against them. He touted their effectiveness in reducing mortality rates. He changed his tune and became anti-vax because of his insane right wing base and people died as a result. A dangerous, empty suit charlatan. https://t.co/rnDZsv1lKGpic.twitter.com/k8k8xEtLOQ
Siccing the cops was even worse because they took her computer that she was using to track the true Florida COVID rate, which she had the audacity to make publicly available. DeSaster couldn’t tolerate that.
So the NYT thinks NOW this is news? By the end of 2020, anyone with half a brain knew DeathSantis was killing off his own citizens in the name of “liberty”.
It may be obvious to us that Florida did worse on COVID than DeSantis has been pretending, but it’s valuable reporting to look at the data and tell the truth, especially since there is the wide impression, if you look only at overall numbers, that FL didn’t do any worse than a number of blue states.That red states in general and Republicans specifically died in greater numbers after vaccines were approved and after their political leaders began poo-pooing their effectiveness has been underreported.
The NYT did have a number of articles about the increasing disparity between red-state and blue-state COVID deaths after the vaccines.
I haven’t read this entire NYT piece as it just came out, but my impression is that it uses data compiled over several years—it’s hard to do perfectly timely reporting on data that takes years to accumulate.
What’s the difference between the Jaws mayor and Ron DeSantis? One’s a politician who ignored warnings about an obvious danger and left the beaches open, resulting in preventable deaths, and the other’s a character in a Steven Spielberg movie.
Mr. DeSantis and his aides have said that his opposition was to mandates, not to the vaccinations themselves. They say the governor only questioned the efficacy of the shots once it became evident that they did not necessarily prevent infection — which prompted him to criticize experts and the federal government.
Something the vaccines were neither designed to do nor approved for.
Few vaccines, never mind against this kind of virus, are 100 percent effective at preventing exposure from becoming an infection, the Republicans whine that these were running around ‘only’ 90-95 percent before they bred yet more strains with their ddeniallism and disease-spreading.
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 36th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is Scottiestoybox@gmail.com
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