Democrats asking, “Where is Ron DeSantis?” as the state surpassing COVID records
The omicron variety continues to wreak havoc in Florida, setting a new single-day COVID-19 case record of 46,923. Despite a slight drop in the fatality rate (18 per day), the number of cases in Florida is up 182 percent over last week, according to the Washington Post. According to the newspaper’s study, Florida is presently the second-most hard-hit state in the country, behind only New York.
Democrats blame the spike on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ hands-off approach to public health, which has recently sparked controversy. Despite early progress in averting the harshest impacts of COVID-19, Florida has seen some of the country’s worst spikes in 2021.
A Florida mayor accused DeSantis of mainly abdicating any responsibility for reducing the spread of COVID-19, as Floridians wonder why DeSantis hasn’t responded to queries in over two weeks.
“We have not received any assistance from the state of Florida at our testing sites,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings on Tuesday. “Our residents, all Florida residents, should be outraged and they should ask the question, ‘Where is our state? Where is our governor? Where is Ron DeSantis now?'”
The governor hasn’t had a news conference on COVID-19 in a long time.
“And where’s Ron DeSantis?” tweeted state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democratic candidate for governor in 2022.
The governor hasn’t had a press conference since Dec. 17, when he promoted a monoclonal antibody treatment produced by AstraZeneca. DeSantis has only given one interview since then, on Fox News, when he discussed his decision not to get a booster injection and stated immunisation should be allowed to “people’s individual decisions.”
On Thursday, the hashtag “#WhereIsRon” trended on Twitter, with many speculating on the cause for his prolonged absence. At the same time, DeSantis shared an old photo of himself at a neighbourhood bagel business, sparking speculations and conspiracy theories.
Vaccine passports, mask mandates, and other heavy-handed government interventions failed, according to the governor’s spokeswoman Christina Pushaw.
“In Florida, we are continuing to emphasize the importance of early treatment and doing everything possible to expand access to clinically effective treatments,” she told the paper. “Governor DeSantis is not imposing any mandates or lockdown policies that have already proven ineffective in other parts of the country.”
Pushaw said most omicron infections in Florida were “asymptomatic or mild” yet the new variation has increased the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the state in just one week.
Florida is not the only state dealing with a terrible Christmas outbreak – the country as a whole averages 240,000 new infections each day.
Aside from being milder than earlier versions, omicron instances tend to induce milder symptoms than previous variants, especially in individuals vaccinated. She also stated hospitalizations are “comparatively low” compared to prior spikes.