The Sunshine State Shines While The Empire State Crumbles
Just three weeks ago the mainstream media was mocking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) over his response to the coronavirus because he wasn’t acting like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. However, after weeks of fear-mongering and scrutiny, Florida is on top and New York is crumbling.
Early in the pandemic, DeSantis was attacked for not closing down however he cited that Florida is unique and put a plan together to let local municipalities dictate their response forming a partnership with local counties.
Instead of locking his whole state down DeSantis took a different approach. Before his stay at home order was issued on April first he had already taken aggressive action against the virus. Travelers were screened or told to self-isolate if they were coming from hotspots like New Orleans and the New York Tri-State area. DeSantis set up checkpoints along the Florida border and at airports to make sure incoming travelers were aware they will need to self-isolate.
Florida has a slightly larger population than New York State – Florida is slightly above 21 million residents and New York slightly over 19 million – but, its population is older than New York and considered more at risk. Up to the writing of this post-Florida had 42,038 confirmed cases and 1,875 deaths. It’s a totally different world in New York, in New York City alone they have seen 343,000 cases of COVID-19 and 22,170 deaths.
“You look at some of the most draconian orders that have been issued in some of these states and compare Florida in terms of our hospitalizations per 100,000, in terms of our fatalities per 100,000,” DeSantis said during an April 28 meeting with the president.
“I mean you go from D.C., Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, you name it; Florida’s done better,” he continued, stressing that his remarks were not to be taken as a criticism of other states.
“But everyone in the media was saying Florida was going to be like New York or Italy, and that has not happened because we understood we have a big, diverse state,” he continued, defending his tailored approach.
“We understood the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state, and we had a tailored and measured approach that not only helped our numbers be way below what anyone predicted, but also did less damage to our state going forward,” he said.
“I had construction going on, the road projects. We did it in a safe way, and we did it. I think, in a way that is probably more sustainable over the long term. So I think people can go back and look at all the criticism and then look now,” he added, noting that hospitals never came near capacity, nor did the state run low on ventilators.
“We’ve had people in the hospital, but I’m now in a situation where I have less than 500 people in a state of 22 million on ventilators as of last night,” he said during the April 28 meeting.
DeSantis has proved his critics wrong, even the left-wing news site Politico admitted DeSantis has done a heck of a job.
One of the big differences is that Florida targeted nursing homes making sure the residents were safe and nursing homes had what they needed. That was something New York Governor Andrew Cuomo did not do and forced COVID-19 patients back into the homes causing a tremendous amount of death.
If there is a state that has shown how to move forward its Florida.