Florida governor vows: No more lockdowns in our state
February 19, 2021 in News by RBN Staff
Source: One News Now
“Lockdowns don’t work,” the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, told the “Fox & Friends” program. “We know that.”
Pointing to his state’s coronavirus data, DeSantis said Florida’s per capita mortality rate for COVID is below the national average when the state has a much older and more vulnerable population than California, for example.
“And so our senior mortality for COVID is less than California’s per capita and yet our schools are open,” DeSantis continued. “Every parent can send their kids to school. Our businesses are open, (and) people are able to go to work and provide for their families.”
Famous for its sandy beaches and vacation mecca Disney World, Florida witnessed its tourism industry crater when Americans, fearing the virus, stayed home. Last fall, Disney announced it was laying off more than 18,000 people, a quarter of its workforce in and around Orlando.
Since last March, approximately 4.5 million Floridians have filed unemployment claims and just now, in mid-February, Florida saw its lowest number of claims since spring of 2020, Florida news outlets reported.
Speaking of California, that state’s numbers have been a concern even after lockdowns were extended and impacted already-hurting businesses trying to stay open.
White House COVID-19 advisor Andy Slavitt was asked by MSNBC to contrast states Florida and California, which was really a contrast between an upopular Democrat governor and a popular Republican one, and he is being criticized for his evasive answer.
“There is so much of this virus that we think we understand, that we think we can predict that’s just a little bit beyond our explanation,” said Slavitt. “We have got to get better visibility into variants. We don’t know what role they play, large events etc., but as we have all learned by this time, this is a virus that continues to surprise us. It’s very hard to predict.”
“I think we’ve been able to avoid a lot of the destruction of these lockdowns,” Gov. DeSantis told Fox News. “When you look at the mortality for 2020 guys, yes, COVID obviously was a big part of the increase in mortality, (but) there are lockdown deaths in some of these states.”
