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Florida this week became the third U.S. state to record a million cases of coronavirus and yet the public has been misled by state leaders about the extent and dangers of the pandemic, particularly in the approach of the presidential election, concluded an investigation.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has been engaged in a Covid-19 hack and cover-up scheme amid the most serious health threat the state has ever faced, South investigation finds Florida Sun Sentinel.
According to the newspaper, the Republican DeSantis influenced a state administration that “cracked down on facts, disseminated dangerous misinformation, fired public health professionals and promoted the opinions of scientific dissidents ” who supported the governor’s ambivalent approach to the disease.
DeSantis declined to be interviewed, the Sun Sentinel said, but noted he told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight earlier this week that media criticism of his approach was “all political.”
The investigation found that county-level spokespersons for the Florida Department of Health stopped issuing public statements on Covid-19 between September and the November 3 election.
And earlier in the pandemic, state officials did not release details of the first cases in Florida and denied that the virus is spreading from person to person, despite the coronavirus being highly contagious.
The attitude adopted by state leaders, mimicking the kind of dismissive approach of Donald Trump, the US President to whom DeSantis is a loyalist, has helped foster a public culture in which many shy away from face masks and congregate. easily in crowded bars and parties, the newspaper says, contrary to federal public health guidelines.
The Sun Sentinel said its extensive reporting was based on interviews with scientists, doctors, politicians and officials, and reviewing thousands of pages of documents.
The misinformation included the governor’s spokesperson on Twitter saying the coronavirus was less deadly than the flu, while also citing statistics in a way that downplayed the virus’s toll.
As Florida’s total number of cases approached 900,000 ahead of the election, Miami Beach mayor Dan Gelber said at a press event while calling for a nationwide mask mandate. State: “It has become pretty clear that what Florida is currently doing is not working. It is undeniably clear that Florida’s approach to managing this pandemic is failing horribly.
He said the lines for getting tested stretched around the block in his community. “The state has dismantled its testing facilities… the state has to take control of it,” he said.
Gelber added that since DeSantis “fully opened up the economy in late September and simultaneously prevented local governments from enforcing individual mask mandates, we’ve seen a huge push.”
Fred Piccolo Jr, the governor’s spokesperson, told The Sun Sentinel that DeSantis didn’t tell any facts and stuck with a fact-based message that would save lives the most.
“The governor has been consistent since the start of the pandemic,” he said. “Washing hands, maintaining social distancing, wearing a mask, etc. But it has also adapted to the data as it becomes available.”
The investigation alleged that DeSantis had excluded leading scientists from the public dialogue on the coronavirus.
At the end of August, DeSantis invited academic Scott Atlas to visit Florida with him, and they appeared at events where they discussed the benefits of avoiding social restrictions.
Atlas has become Trump’s controversial top coronavirus adviser as the president backs away from top public health officials such as Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. Atlas resigned from his White House post earlier this week.
And as the election nears, the Florida Department of Health has cut back public information about the coronavirus and shut down its regular Facebook and Twitter posts on Covid-19 security measures.
Leading Florida University Affiliate Infectious Disease Experts have been largely dismissed and bypassed.
“We have over 200 affiliate professors at this institute,” Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, told Sun Sentinel.
“This is what we do for a living. However, the state has not taken full advantage of this expertise. “
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