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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that some Democratic states would try to reimpose “restrictions and mandates” related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as Philadelphia (in Pennsylvania) recently did, and said that won’t happen in his state as long as he is in office.
“So, let me say it very clearly to all Floridians: you just saw Philadelphia impose an indoor mandate. Potentially, you’ll see some of these other ‘Deep Blue’ jurisdictions go back to restrictions and mandates,” DeSantis noted, pointing at the “brutal” confinement they have reimposed against citizens in Shanghai, China.
“So I just want to be very clear: as long as I sit in the chair in which I sit, no Floridian will be restricted, mandated or locked down in any way possible,” he continued.
The Republican highlighted that in the last two years there has been “an industry” of “politicians and media personalities” imposing or supporting confinement measures or restrictions motivated by COVID-19, who also criticized, “mercilessly,” the measures taken by Florida to deal with the pandemic, and then were seen vacationing in the Sunshine State.
“If I had a dollar for every politician on the Hill that escaped their own policies to come to our free state, I would be set for life,” DeSantis said. “The issue is that if they thought their policies were really necessary, and these mitigations were really effective, they would be abiding by them. They don’t obey them because they know it’s all about politics and control.”
He referred to those politicians and their restrictive measures as part of a “COVID theater” to which Florida has “zero tolerance,” and asserted that, had it not been that way, his state would not be enjoying an economic “boom.”
“People know this is the free state, they know they can come here and make their own decisions, they know they’re not going to be harassed to show medical papers to have a hamburger somewhere, they know they’re going to be able to enjoy life, this is the reason we won’t give that up,” the Republican added.
Had it not been for the leadership in his state, he pointed out, children would have been out of school for more than a year, “hundreds of thousands” of workers would have lost their jobs, family-owned businesses and small businesses would have collapsed.
“Instead, we weren’t locking up people, we were lifting them up, and that was the right thing to do,” he concluded.
DeSantis: mandates “prolong misery”
In a short statement posted on his Twitter account Thursday, DeSantis referred to Joe Biden’s extension of the transportation mask mandate as more “COVID theater” that simply “prolongs the misery” for passengers.
“This is the Biden’ equivalent of continuing the beatings until morale improves. I’m glad Florida and other states are fighting this mandate in court,” he said in his statement.
A recent study found that states that imposed the toughest restrictive measures during the pandemic, such as the Democratic states of New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois, were also the hardest affected.
The report found that the economy and education in those states suffered the worst consequences nationwide, while their policies caused high death rates.
The report, prepared by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), said that confinements during the pandemic were “by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made.”
