Earlier this week, hundreds of Floridian pediatricians wrote a letter to antiva superspreader Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis asking him to reconsider his murderous COVID-19 strategy (apparently, DeSantis is a big fan; boldface mine):
Physicians across Florida are concerned about Florida’s children and their risk of COVID-19 infections. As the virus burns through Florida, health care providers feel we are fighting this fire without any leadership from Gov. Ron DeSantis. Blocking communities from making local decisions to protect themselves with his top-down, one-size-fits-all edict will only make matters worse.
His executive order prohibiting local school districts from implementing COVID-19 safeguards exposes every child to a virus that is deadlier than the flu, as contagious as smallpox and preventable with two basic mitigation measures: mask use and vaccinations. The governor has effectively ruled out the former, and done too little to stress the latter for students. With schools resuming and children returning to classrooms, Gov. DeSantis’ strategy puts people at risk, including children…
To protect the health of vulnerable Floridians, we are calling on Gov. DeSantis to do three things immediately.
One, Gov. DeSantis should repeal his reckless executive order and allow and encourage local school districts to implement safeguards such as mask-wearing that can minimize COVID-19 spread.
Two, his administration must resume reporting COVID-19 daily data in full.
And three, Gov. DeSantis must do much more to get vaccinations in people’s arms…
Shots in arms are only part of an effective safety strategy. For children ineligible for a vaccine, the only protection they have against COVID-19 is for them to wear a mask, and for those around them to do the same. As physicians, we agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation that all schools have students, staff and teachers wear masks, which scientific evidence shows reduces COVID-19 spread.
What’s heartbreaking and infuriating for us as doctors is watching children needlessly suffer while Gov. DeSantis rejects simple protections such as masks and vaccinations…
Waving the flag of personal choice, as Gov. DeSantis does, even as those choices endanger the lives of others, only robs millions of Floridians of the freedom to eat out, be with their loved ones and, yes, learn in schools safely.
Enough is enough. Florida needs to mask up, get vaccinated and have a governor willing to lead.
Yet I haven’t seen any calls from ‘respectable’ media for either his resignation or removal from office (there is a hashtag #ImpeachDeSantis, but that’s not quite the same thing…). Because it’s pretty clear he is endangering his constituents’ lives for his own political gain. Newspapers have called for impeachment and pronounced scandal for far less (really, they have; I’m old).
As some asshole with a blog noted a while ago:
So I keep returning to this problem: most state and local governments failed–in too many cases, catastrophically–to meet the greatest acute domestic challenge in my lifetime. Yet our political system won’t punish them for that failure, and most of them won’t resign either (STOP LAUGHING! STOP LAUGHING NOW!). I get that this [the COVID-19 pandemic] is (likely, hopefully) a one-off event, but a lack of accountability given such failure still does not seem to be a good thing.
It really isn’t.
mikethemadbiologist
DeSantis kills folks and seems to get away with it, Newsom saves folks and gets recalled. Hard to be proud of America right now.
Saves folks? I was in Los Angeles in winter. I was screaming at my computer while looking at case counts: “shut it down”, “shut it down” while cases rose and rose and rose, and it was clear it was heading for catastrophe with the exponential growth, and then hospitals became overwhelmed and the rate of death from those who caught it increased due to lack of medical services.
One can argue this should have been handled locally by L.A. county, but they were obviously incapable of any such action, they were taking no action except when forced to by Newsom. Yes they are also horrible and should all be thrown out of office, but Newsom is the only one who could have saved us. He was the only one who would have taken any action. And he didn’t. We had the color coded maps, we were bleeding worst tier. In order not to shut things down Newsom CHANGED THE MAPS to be a different regions not all that nearby. Instead of being county level tiers Los Angles was grouped with Action or something. I mean the regions we had in the worst of the crisis were the worst gerrymandered absurdity I’ve ever seen. It was clearly a bid not to have to shut things down when warranted. Noone could have HONESTLY drawn those maps, as opposed to the prior county level maps which were at least straightforward counties.
Newsom shut down very early in spring of 2020 yes, and then got spooked, and opened up bars too early in summer, which ended badly, and then didn’t shut down when we really needed it most in winter. At best he gets a D+ grade maybe. But sure De Santis might get an F.
Of course you are correct. But have you looked at what most other states have done? Compared to status quo I stand by my comment about saving lives and getting recalled for it. When your best is pretty bad you have to remember any replacement is likely to be worse. Case in point…have you researched the crowd of misfits vying for his job? We could be a lot worse off because we expected perfect from Newsom.
And what if one DOES have the opportunity to punish? In California they let the hospitals in Los Angeles get overwhelmed in order not to reign in xmas shopping. And some people died who wouldn’t have just due to lack of hospital availability. That is what happened. It was a bloodbath and a horror to live through, knowing, woops there are no hospitals anymore. And they had to have known how exponential growth would go, they let it play out.
Now this doesn’t mean CA governor Newsom is equally as bad as De Santis, but we have the opportunity to punish him alright with a recall. But who would? When our recall is just a ridiculous Republican power grab for people wanting NO restrictions AT ALL in a pandemic, so that we can get a Republican governor in an overwhelmingly blue state with less than 20% of the vote. I don’t even know how to vote on that. I think Newsom should be held to account, that’s not the message that will be sent. I will vote for a replacement in the second part of the vote though, I am not going to listen to the Dem party and leave that blank so as to make sure if we don’t keep Newsom we get Larry Elder or something. No way. I will vote a Green, or a Dem, or an independent, whatever, but definitely not under any circumstances a Republican.
Silly rabbit – IOKIYAR!