What About
“Why don’t you do your job?” was Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis comment to President Joe Biden this week. “Why don’t you get this border secure? And until you do that, I don’t wanna hear a blip about COVID from you.” That’s after Florida had the second highest COVID infection rate in the Nation, up 119% in the past two weeks (Louisiana is highest – NYT). Biden and the White House are frustrated with DeSantis’s lack of action. In fact, DeSantis not only prevented the State of Florida from acting, but also restricted local authorities in Florida from instituting individual controls.
And with the traditional “what-about-ism” of his hero the 45th President, DeSantis tried to deflect Florida’s growing COVID crisis by changing the subject to border security. It didn’t work – hospitals in Florida are reaching capacity, and the Delta variant is still spreading. Unlike his fellow Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who wished he could mandate masks (he signed a law removing his own authority), DeSantis still spouts mask wearing as a “personal freedom” issue, make you own choice.
DeSantis isn’t stupid. He is a former Naval Officer, and a Yale and Harvard graduate. So he knows that “personal freedom” won’t stop COVID-19 variants. And he also knows that it’s “I don’t want to hear a…” ‘bit’, or ‘whit’ or even ‘shit’”: but not a blip.
Who’s Protected
DeSantis knows – just like most folks – that vaccination slows the spread of COVID, even the Delta variant (Pfizer – 64% to 94% for Delta versus 90%-96% for original, Healthline). But just half of Florida citizens are covered. And the Governor knows that the vaccines almost guarantee that if a person does gets the variant, they won’t be hospitalized or die. DeSantis also is surely aware that masks reduce the spread of this much more highly transmissible version. And finally he knows that this variant is having a greater impact on younger folks.
My experience with Florida is that it’s a great place to retire, but a bad place to get sick. Perhaps it’s because there’s such a large elderly population in Florida, that it seems so difficult to get effective care. But most of the elderly in Florida aren’t stupid, they got the vaccine, and they are prepared for the Delta variant.
Who doesn’t have the vaccine? Younger folks, and particularly school aged kids. And now, the Delta variant’s transmissibility is comparable to the chicken pox. For those my age, remember how quickly the chicken pox could spread through a grade school classroom? Younger folks don’t know about that – because almost all got the vaccine for chicken pox. There’s a vaccine for COVID-19 too, but instead of encouraging vaccination and masking of the young, Governor DeSantis simply cries “Personal Freedom” (WAPO).
Science
The science is not a matter of opinion. While we can argue the impact of the infrastructure spending on the economy, or the role of the United States in international affairs, or even US policy on the Southern Border: Covid is about facts, not opinions. So it’s hard not to think that DeSantis and his like are making a cruel choice. They are choosing political expediency over public health, another “Big Lie” over lives.
And for those, like DeSantis, who say “the science” has changed – he’s absolutely correct. That’s the nature of science (and of nature). As we learn more, we alter the assumptions we started with. School systems teach the scientific method: observation describes a problem, create a hypothesis about the problem, test and evaluate the hypothesis, draw conclusion and refine the hypothesis. Science is constantly testing, constantly refining, willing to say “what we thought was true was not, and here’s the new answer”.
Facts Don’t Matter
So when Dr. Fauci early in pandemic crisis did not recommend masks – he was working on the hypothesis that COVID didn’t transmit well in the air. When he got new data, better data, he refined his hypothesis and recommended masks. Unlike politicians who are afraid of becoming “flip-floppers”, Fauci is a scientist, who follows the facts. And he followed the facts to the new Delta variant, recognizing that the solutions of last April and May or not the solutions of August and September.
And “Ivy League” Ron DeSantis knows it too. But “personal freedom” is such good politics, that he doesn’t give a shit.
