It's better for DeJester to embezzle those fed taxpayer funds for his reelection campaign using COVID culture wars issues.
Southeast U.S. poised for a firestorm of omicron cases, with few safeguards in place That’s by design in many places such as Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has repeatedly taken steps to limit public health powers. Most recently, DeSantis called a special session of the state legislature to pass bills restricting the ability of businesses and local governments to mandate masks and vaccines. Experts say such measures, which have proliferated across the country, will make it harder to stop surges of the omicron variant.
Florida surgeon general's call for people to stop relying on testing is a 'me first, forget everybody else' approach, health expert says https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-surgeon-general-covid-19-testing-2022-1 Florida is switching its approach to COVID-19 testing, focusing on giving tests to "high-value" patients. A public health expert told Insider this method is consistent with a "me first, forget everybody else" approach. She said the state should actually be ramping up testing, rather than cutting back. Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo's call for people to stop relying on COVID-19 testing is "consistent with an anti-public health approach to the pandemic" and a "me first, forget everybody else" way of thinking, a public health expert told Insider. At a COVID-19 briefing Monday, Ladapo and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the state will be shifting focus to testing "high-value" patients as cases surge due to the Omicron variant. "High-value testing is testing that is likely to change outcomes," Ladapo said. He added that they are working to unwind the testing psychology that has been caused by federal leadership. "We need to unwind this testing and living one's life around testing," Ladapo said. "Without it, we're going to be stuck in the same cycle so it's really time for people to be living, to be making the decisions they want regarding vaccination, and enjoy the fact that many people have natural immunity." Dr. Celine Gounder, an Infectious Disease Specialist and Epidemiologist at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, told Insider she sees this move as a focus on the individual rather than the community. "Testing psychology is really about caring and looking out for others," she said. "Basically what they're saying is 'You don't need to worry about other people, you can just focus on yourself as the individual. You can make your individual decisions about whether you get infected or not, whether you get vaccinated or not, and you take responsibility for your individual decisions.'" She added that it implies that the state does not want to isolate or quarantine people to reduce the spread of COVID-19. "That really is not going to be part of the policy here if they are going to focus on individuals," she said. In order to get to the other side of the pandemic, Gounder said that actions in the interest of the community are actually in the individual interest. She said a lack of understanding of this mindset is contributing to attitudes that work to treat COVID-19 as an individual, rather than a community-wide, problem. "I think it's corrosive in terms of thinking about public health problems which are community-level problems, population-level problems," she said. "Trying to reduce those to individual issues, which they are not, and that really sets you up for failure. At least if you care about preventing disease and death." She added that in states where "individual trumps community," you could see the same pattern of shifting testing techniques. For a state like Florida, where testing lines are getting unmanageable, Gounder said the right move is actually to be ramping up testing rather than cutting back as this plan proposes. "Clearly there is demand for testing that's not being met," she said. "Putting our heads in the sand and pretending this isn't happening isn't going to help us."
Covid cases rise by 948% in Florida as Omicron drives huge wave across US In Florida, local and state officials warned that residents were waiting hours in sometimes miles-long lines just to get a test. Some accused the state health department and the governor, Ron DeSantis, of being missing in action. “It’s every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA,” tweeted state senator Shevrin Jones.
Nah, why? So we can just have more asymptomatic people using up state resources because they're soy boys like yourself? All these people getting testing because they don't feel well - what does it prove? How do they change behaviors? The only time you should be tested is if you go to the hospital because you're really sick, and then the hospital tests you. But you NPCs have created an entire generation of hypochondriacs.
DeSantis wants to buy $1B in Regeneron -- a monoclonal antibody treatment which is useless against Omicron. Regeneron is freely available from the federal government -- Florida even has 12,000 doses stockpiled which they are not even using. But here is DeSantis demanding that Florida be allowed to purchase $1B worth of Regeneron to help his investor buddy. DeSantis demands feds allow Florida to buy $1 billion in COVID treatment top donor has invested in https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/ron-desantis-treatment/ Ron DeSantis has returned to public view after a two-week absence where he was accused of being “MIA” during record-breaking coronavirus case counts. On Monday the Republican governor held a press conference to blast President Joe Biden, demanding he allow Florida purchase a COVID-19 treatment that is manufactured by a company one of his top donors has heavily invested in. Standing behind a sign promoting “treatment” – not vaccines or masks – DeSantis said the GOP-controlled state legislature has approved one billion dollars to purchase the COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment, should the federal government allow it, WFLA reports. “Now that we’ve gotten the pathway cleared with Regeneron,” DeSantis told reporters, referring to the company that manufactures monoclonal antibody treatments. “We have the ability and we will immediately turn on additional sites as soon as the federal government gives us a supply.” He also named two other new treatments made by other companies. But as HuffPost reported, DeSantis had been “flying around the state promoting Regeneron” last summer. “Citadel, a Chicago-based hedge fund, has $15.9 million in shares of Regeneron Pharmaceutical, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has donated $10.75 million to a political committee that supports DeSantis — $5.75 million in 2018 and $5 million last April.” DeSantis also told reporters on Monday, “We are ready to go, on all of this, and have been ready for a long time,” referring to COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatments. “We do not believe the federal government should be holding back anymore medications. We feel we have to offer this. Particularly for our elderly population.” DeSantis did not promote getting vaccinated or wearing masks, far less expensive actions that have better results.
Many of us have, but the NPCs will continue to scream for control and power. Oh, and some bullshit about "long covid".