While deaths are down in the lovely Sunshine State from COVID-19, Florida keeps shattering single day records for new, positive cases. Positive cases have exploded by 182 percent compared with the previous seven-day period. Florida now has reported 4 million total cases since the pandemic began, joining California and Texas as the only states with at least 4 million coronavirus infections since 2020.
So, where’s DeSantis? No one truly knows since he hasn’t held a press conference since December 17, 2021.
DeSantis did appear on Fox ‘News’ with the esteemed Maria Bartiromo and said he had not gotten boosted.
“I’ve done whatever I did, the normal shot, and that at the end of the day is people’s individual decisions about what they want to do.”
A spokesperson for DeSantis, Christina Pushaw, told the Washington Post “…the omicron variant is responsible for most of the new cases in Florida, adding that many of the new infections appear to be “asymptomatic or mild.” She noted how states such as California and New York are also breaking records for new infections, saying it is ‘evident that the vaccine passports, mask mandates and other heavy-handed government interventions did not achieve their stated goals.’”
“In Florida, we are continuing to emphasize the importance of early treatment and doing everything possible to expand access to clinically effective treatments,” Pushaw said in a statement. “Governor DeSantis is not imposing any mandates or lockdown policies that have already proven ineffective in other parts of the country.”
Then she took to Twitter to continue her ‘whataboutisms.’
In a press conference Tuesday, Mayor Jerry Demings of Orange County, a Democrat, called on the governor to step up his response efforts because the omicron surge has resulted in people waiting in line as long as five hours to get tested.
“We have not received any assistance from the state of Florida at our testing sites,” Demings said. “Local governments have been left to figure it out and respond on our own. We are doing our best.”
“He signed into law legislation that effectively prohibited local governments from being able to take charge and lead in our fight against Covid-19,” Demings said.
“Our residents, all Florida residents should be outraged, and they should ask the question, now, where’s our state? Where’s our governor? Where is Ron DeSantis now? When was the last time you saw the governor do a press briefing regarding Covid-19?” Demings asked.
After Mayor Demmings’ presser, DeSantis’s Twitter account tweeted a picture of him at a sweet shop in Chipley. DeSantis’s office told MSNBC the sweet shop visit actually took place on Dec. 16.
When the going gets tough, the GQP goes MIA.
