An op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal gives Gov. Ron DeSantis the credit he deserves for making the right choice for Florida, as opposed to how Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo handled things in California and New York, respectively.
Rather than dump otherwise healthy seniors in with seniors who tested positive for the Chinese virus, which is what Cuomo did, DeSantis took a different approach to ensure that Florida's senior population, among the largest in the country, stayed as healthy and safe as possible.
DeSantis also followed the science by lifting lockdowns and other restrictions far earlier than any other state. Adopting Sweden's model, DeSantis respected the rights and liberties of Floridians to continue living their lives rather than try to force them all to stay home and masked forever, which is what many other state governors are attempting to do.
"More than 80% of COVID deaths in the U.S. have occurred among seniors over 65," the op-ed explains. "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," it goes on to reveal. "Florida's death rate is in the middle of the park 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."
A key difference in DeSantis' approach to caring for his state's senior population was to halt all outside visitations to nursing homes by showering them with personal protective equipment (PPE). He also set up 23 COVID-dedicated nursing centers for elderly patients that were discharged from hospitals, as opposed to sending them back to regular nursing homes to intermix with non-positive residents.
"Nursing-home residents who tested positive and couldn't be isolated in their facilities were sent to these COVID-only wards," the Journal piece further explains. "Florida set up field hospitals to handle a surge in cases that models predicted in the spring, although it never materialized."
At the same time that DeSantis was doing this, Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy were forcibly stuffing COVID-positive seniors in with -negative seniors at area nursing homes, resulting in a surge of elderly deaths that is simply inexcusable.
Worse yet is the fact that an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed that the state's COVID-related nursing home deaths were actually 50 percent higher than what was officially reported because the Cuomo regime actively hid data from the public as a cover.
"Those models about hospital overcrowding never even came close to bearing out, even in New York," DeSantis is quoted as saying about the media fear-mongering last spring and summer. "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."
Florida is doing just fine being open and mask-less, by the way. The numbers are down, especially since PCR tests were recalibrated across the board immediately following Beijing Biden's installation into the White House.
More of the latest news about the Wuhan flu can be found at Pandemic.news.
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