"The Buck Stops Here" - as the executive leader of a state DeSantis needs to take responsibility for the failed COVID-19 response. In April he was hyping that Florida's "success" was due to his great leadership despite health experts warning that a crisis would be arriving. Now that the crisis has arrived DeSantis must take full ownership. In a public health crisis - transparency in data is critical for maintaining the trust of the public in government. There is example after example of the DeSantis administration being deliberately less than transparent with COVID data. University medical researcher. Sorry you can't have the data. First responder. Sorry we are taking your data away. Hospitalization data on the portal disagrees with the DeSantis narrative at a press conference - well just delete the hospitalization data from the portal. Pesky GIS expert resists removing data from a portal that was highly praised prior interference from your administration? Fire her and slut shame her. The list of actions taken by the DeSantis administration demonstrate a deliberate lack of transparency and crude attempts to make the provided data align with the political narrative. Policy should not drive data. Data should drive policy. As the top state executive DeSantis can set statewide policy on closing bars, have enforcement from the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco shut down illegal clubs, require masks statewide, and define what is open/closed rather than each city having different policies. DeSantis can provide leadership in addressing the COVID crisis -- instead he is opening schools, pushing cities to ease restrictions, and still insisting on hosting the GOP convention. It is time to admit DeSantis has completely failed in the COVID response in Florida.
I'd be happy to admit it if it were true. But most of what you said is total bullshit. You're not interested in debating data, you just want to post your articles. When you're proven to be wrong, you pretend you "don't have the time for a response", yet come back and just throw the same narrative, sans any proof or data. That's pretty much what you do. It's your M.O. and its been obvious since the beginning of this thread. Its all right here in text, pages and pages of it. From you claiming that "not wearing a mask is the same as shooting your family in the head with a gun" to your false data claims on how the most people yet died, and here come the deaths, as you giddily dance and show how thrilled you are that the deaths have a slight increase. Most folks would tuck their tail and run and not show their "face" again in the thread, but you don't have shame. You're just a troll. And I've wasted enough time with you.
You claim DeSantis is winning. I am stating that this is obviously not true. I will provide evidence to back my assertions. His biggest offense is deliberately being less than transparent with COVID-19 data. He believes that policy should shape data, and data should that disagrees with his policy should be hidden from the public. I posted data on this thread and others demonstrating the differences in data for Florida and Georgia --- and how it was manipulated to show a decline when there was no decline. This was also called out by the local media - and I provided the supporting articles. You claim to be "debating data" -- you never provided any answer on the obvious data discrepancies that were pointed out.... except for trying to explain away recent death data as a question of which date the death was allotted to -- of course this does not explain the discrepancies for dates two weeks in the past. I will continue to provide information from the media demonstrating that DeSantis is not "winning" -- in fact most of his decisions to not support public health or the recovery of Florida's economy.
No, you moron. I claimed DeSantis in the opening post was right when he challenged the media on their assertions they made early on (how Florida would be the next Italy, how we'd have 400k deaths or some ludicrous number...) and how they were wrong. And how DeSantis opened us up early and allowed us to get back to work. You can argue whether that is the right move or not, and I'll be happy to debate it with economics and case data. But ever since that timeframe, all I've been doing is talking about the data. It is YOU who keeps up the "winning" and manipulation narrative. I've specifically said that governors can't be held overly accountable outside the "captain of the ship, buck stops here" narrative. But DeSantis isn't doing anything to cause this. Mask mandates are in the cities for all they're worth, and the young people out at illegal parties and raves aren't DeSantis's fault. No different than any other governor (of which there are many whose states are seeing surges). You're just a narrative pimp at this point. Discard anything that runs contrary to your narrative. You were called out so very obviously for being wrong and you never admit error. You're just a troll.
"But DeSantis isn't doing anything to cause this." Nonsense. Let's start with the obvious example where DeSantis is directly connected. The state portal posts hospitalization data on the GIS website. DeSantis gets questioned about the data at a press conference because the data completely disagrees with his assertions. The next day the creator of the state portal is told to take down the hospitalization data. She resists taking down the data and is removed from involvement with the website & fired the following day. How much more of a direct connection to data manipulation and hiding is needed.
I suspect that shortly, the numbers in Florida, Texas, and Arizona will begin to look like Sweden, especially if they are counted and disseminated correctly. Letting it spread seems to be the correct way of long term containment. We are closer to herd immunity than a lot of folks think----we're just not as close as Sweden is.
The only problem with this is the effect from other states and on other states. Its not just a microcosm of Florida.