Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is doing COVID his way, that’s for sure, and not everyone seems to have the same keen eye for freedom as the Sunshine State lawmaker.
DeSantis has been particularly concerned with protecting the bodily sovereignty of his constituents, enacting a number of executive orders designed to prevent mask mandates, vaccine requirements, or vaccine passport guidelines from being installed – either by local officials or by Florida businesses.
This has drawn a great deal of criticism from pundits and politicians around the nation, and DeSantis certainly appears to be growing tired of their childish consternation.
During an event at Shark Valley in the Everglades, DeSantis gave a reporter a terse response when he was asked about seven children at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital with COVID, two in the ICU. The question was could masks have helped?
“You’re blaming the kids saying they weren’t wearing masks so they’re in the ICU. With all due respect, I find that deplorable to blame a victim who ends up being hospitalized,” said DeSantis.
He never did give his thoughts on whether he thought masks would have helped.
“This has been a really negative thing throughout this whole thing, with some of these, quote, experts, some of the media, somebody can contract a highly transmissible airborne virus and they’re viewed as having done something wrong. That’s just not the way you do it,” he added.
DeSantis isn’t alone in his liberty-first thinking, however, with fellow Governor Greg Abbott of Texas similarly working to prevent any COVID overreach by local authorities or companies doing business in the Lone Star State.