Florida WonderGovernor Ron DeSantis said President Biden is singling out Florida over Covid while importing variants from around the world through the southern border.
DeSantis made the remarks after President Biden confronted the governors of Florida and Texas on Tuesday, asking them to help curb the spread of Covid or “get out of the way.”
“Just two states, Florida and Texas, account for one-third of all new COVID-19 cases in the entire country. Just two states,” Biden said.
Early on Wednesday DeSantis held a roundtable virtual discussion with Orlando hospital CEOs as Tuesday broke another record for Covid hospitalizations.
Orlando Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. George Ralls explained that between 95-99% of the patients being treated in their hospital systems are unvaccinated.
“That’s a really important message for people to hear that despite the information that’s coming out about people that are fully vaccinated still getting COVID, those numbers are low, number one, and they are absolutely still in a better situation than they would have been had they gotten COVID without the vaccine,” Ralls said.
The CEOs stressed that they were seeing breakthrough cases, but they were rare, and they were mild.
“12% of our admissions are from vaccinated people, half of that group are people that are coming in for other reasons than COVID,” Carlos Migoya, CEO of Jackson Health System, said. “So, about a quarter of our positive people — we have right now 280 patients that are COVID positive — a quarter of those are here for other purposes and are asymptomatic. Of course, when we test them, we find out that they have COVID, but they’re not here for COVID.”
DeSantis doubled down against Biden saying he and the government want kindergartners to wear masks and that Biden “rejects science because he denies that people who recover from COVID have long-lasting immunity.”
The Jacksonville mayor Lenny Curry was also in on the roundtable with hospital execs.
“A lot of people are afraid and panicking. This is — from my perspective — the solution is: get vaccinated. I’m not suggesting we coerce or force or mandate people to get vaccinated, but we keep working together to educate them that the vaccine is effective, it will keep you out of the hospital and it will keep you from getting really, really sick,” Curry said.
Local WESH, ClickOrlando