Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Economy

Vindication for Ron DeSantis

2021-03-06

[WSJ] The media vilified him for rejecting harsh lockdowns. But Florida’s Covid-19 numbers are better than California’s or New York’s, and its economy thrives.

In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed strict lockdown policies—many still in place—and became the media’s golden boy. "The governor of New York’s morning news conferences have become part of the country’s new daily rhythm," the Washington Post’s Style section gushed in March 2020. "He’s the strongman who can admit he’s wrong. He speaks fluently about the facts. He worries about his mother, and by extension, yours, too."

Gov. Ron DeSantis took a different approach and was pilloried. He was among the first to lift his state lockdown, adopting something resembling Sweden’s strategy of protecting the vulnerable while keeping businesses and schools open. "Florida Man Leads His State to the Morgue," read a June headline in the New Republic. "Ron DeSantis is the latest in a long line of Republicans who made the state a plutocratic dystopia. Now he’s letting its residents die to save the plutocrats."

A year after the virus hit the U.S., Mr. Cuomo’s luster has faded, and Mr. DeSantis can claim vindication. The Sunshine State appears to have weathered the pandemic better than others like New York and California, which stayed locked down harder and longer.

Mortality data bear out this conclusion. The Covid death risk increases enormously with each decade of age. More than 80% of Covid deaths in the U.S. have occurred among seniors over 65. They make up a larger share of Florida’s population than any other state except Maine. Based on demographics, Florida’s per-capita Covid death rate would be expected to be one of the highest in the country.

Nope. Florida’s death rate is in the middle of the pack and only slightly higher than in California, which has a much younger population. Florida’s death rate among seniors is about 20% lower than California’s and 50% lower than New York’s, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Several Democratic governors, including Mr. Cuomo and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, early in the pandemic required nursing homes to accept Covid patients discharged from hospitals, though many were short-staffed and unable to care for them properly. The New York investigation by Attorney General Letitia James estimated that the state’s nursing home deaths were 50% higher than Mr. Cuomo’s official figures, though it’s impossible to know how many deaths his order caused.

The most recent numbers I’ve seen are that originally New York State nursing home deaths were reported as 6000+, but the corrected number is about 15,000, nearly 200% more.

The Journal reported Thursday that Mr. Cuomo’s aides rewrote a report by state health officials in June to omit the number of New York nursing-home residents who’d died in hospitals during the pandemic.

Mr. DeSantis took a smarter approach. His administration halted outside visitations to nursing homes and bolstered their stockpile of personal protective equipment. Florida’s government also set up 23 Covid-dedicated nursing centers for elderly patients discharged from hospitals. Nursing-home residents who tested positive and couldn’t be isolated in their facilities were sent to these Covid-only wards. Florida set up field hospitals to handle a surge in cases that models predicted in the spring, although it never materialized.

"Those models about hospital overcrowding never even came close to bearing out, even in New York," Mr. DeSantis says in an interview. "Some of those policies that were done in these other states, they really were motivated by those models. And those models did do a lot of damage."

Like most governors, Mr. DeSantis shut down most businesses when President Trump issued guidelines for a national lockdown on March 16. "We did the 15 days to slow the spread," Mr. DeSantis says. The governor kept restrictions on "nonessential" businesses for several more weeks, but he let more places stay open than other states, including child-care facilities, construction sites, hotels and beaches. National media published photos of crowded Florida beaches. "DeSantis in Florida let everybody go crazy over spring break," CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the New York governor’s brother, said in June. "He then exported all that virus back to wherever—wherever they wanted to go, OK?"

But Florida’s infection rate during April stayed on par with California, where most beaches and residential construction were restricted. "I was not convinced that a lot of those [lockdown] policies were making a huge difference as data came in," Mr. DeSantis says.

Florida began a phased reopening in early May, allowing restaurants, barbershops, nail salons, gyms and other retailers to operate initially at 50% capacity provided they follow social-distancing and sanitary protocols. Bars and pubs were later allowed to open at 50% capacity, and limits for other businesses were increased.

Mr. DeSantis also let theme parks—important Florida employers and tourist attractions—reopen at reduced capacity. SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Studios reopened in June. "Disney World took a little longer, but that was just because of their [own] business decisions." California’s government still hasn’t allowed the Disneyland or Universal Studios theme parks to reopen....

Posted by:Clem

#1 DeSantis for POTUS 2024

Posted by: Jith Mussolini3284 2021-03-06 14:11

00:00