DeSantis flirts with the anti-vaccine crowd

MIAMI – Ron DeSantis is not anti-vaccine. But he started to stand side by side with those who are.

The Florida governor’s clear and pure public message about the need for vaccines has watered down in recent months, culminating with a press conference he held this week to denounce President Joe Biden’s new vaccine tenure plan – and threaten cities and counties that impose their own mandates with fines.

The event in the small town of Newberry, Florida featured two anti-vaccine workers, one of whom falsely claimed he wouldn’t get the vaccine because it “changes your RNA.” DeSantis at the time said nothing about misinformation, a standard anti-vaccine talking point, and later declined to say why he had not corrected the lie.

“I don’t even remember him saying that, so it wasn’t anything I said,” DeSantis said at a press conference Tuesday, when asked about the remarks made the day before. DeSantis then discussed the benefits of vaccinations.

Another guest speaker by DeSantis suggested vaccines are lethal without mentioning how rare it is or how many more unvaccinated people die from Covid. “My body, my choice,” she said, adopting the slogan of abortion rights defenders.

The inclusion of anti-vaccine misinformation at a DeSantis press conference marks a major departure from the stronger, more direct arguments it made for vaccines earlier in the year. The change in the Republican governor – considered one of the main contenders for the 2024 presidential primary – coincides with more virulent anti-vaccine voices within the GOP, who have gone so far as to boo former President Donald Trump for having tells Alabama residents to “take the vaccines.” “

Biden’s sweeping push to demand vaccines for 100 million Americans has paved the way for top GOP leaders to build support from the anti-vaccine crowd – while broadly supporting vaccines. Other Republican governors, even in states where vaccination warrants have been employed, have also been quick to push back on Biden’s plans.

DeSantis has been drifting in this direction for months. As the pace of vaccinations slowed both in Florida and across the country, and as the most devastating wave of Covid to hit Florida began to flood the state over the summer, DeSantis comments on the need for more hits have become more nuanced. This took precedence over his promotion of monoclonal antibody treatments like Regeneron, which he started in earnest in mid-August as the state broke records for new infections and hospitalizations.

“There is no doubt that the back-and-forth position which [DeSantis] takes is confusing its supporters, ”said Aileen Marty, epidemiologist at Florida International University. “It is one of the worst infectious diseases that mankind has known in a long time. And in the event of a pandemic, it causes stress, anxiety and fear. And a key way for people to deal with this is denial. So when you vocalize things that feed off people’s denial of a threat, you disarm them from doing what they need to do to actually reduce their risk. This is just not a good thing.

It’s not that DeSantis is opposed to vaccines – he had one himself – or that he spoke negatively about them. But his staunch opposition to immunization mandates has caused his stance to align more than ever with anti-vaccine people and those who don’t want to be vaccinated.

This opposition follows the governor’s rejection of restrictions of any kind related to Covid, ranging from a ban on vaccine passports to a ban on local school districts from imposing mask warrants that do not include withdrawal for children. parents. As the number of Covid victims soared, the toll of it all has eroded the governor’s popularity in the state as he faces his re-election in 2022.

At the same time, however, DeSantis’ clashes with Biden and his libertarian approach to Covid have made him intensely popular among die-hard conservatives, placing the governor of Florida at the top of potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates if Trump does not show up.

Governor’s spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said no one who has seen more than 50 DeSantis public appearances promoting vaccinations would accept the governor’s thinking that vaccines change the molecular structure of people.

“Vaccination offers good protection against serious consequences for people who are fully vaccinated,” she said. “However, the science behind vaccines does not support the vaccine mandates of the Biden administration.”

The DeSantis administration rebuffed the suggestion that anti-vaccine sentiment and vaccine reluctance is largely a conservative phenomenon, noting that many unvaccinated Florida people also tend to be young or non-white, both data. demographics who tend to disproportionately vote Democrats.

Some of DeSantis’ rhetoric has also concerned experts in recent weeks when, for example, he lamented that vaccines failed to achieve herd immunity as promised and continued to mention “breakthrough” infections among those who did. are vaccinated, although data indicates that such cases are rare. .

Critics also noted that the governor’s Twitter account had not posted any “vaccines” or “vaccinations” since the spring, after he embarked on a months-long journey to obtain vaccines for people. aged when stocks were limited.

The governor began to take a more complicated stance on vaccines during the spring legislative session when he banned so-called vaccine passports that require people to show proof of vaccination before entering a business or to a government service. But DeSantis later contradicted his original rationale for the ban when he attempted to use the vaccine passport ban as a legal basis to impose fines on cities for implementing vaccination mandates.

The day after the bill was enacted, May 4, DeSantis insisted at a press conference that it only applied to people who wanted to “do basic things: a restaurant, a movie, a plane “or a ride on a cruise ship (a cruise so far has successfully taken legal action to block the law). He made the remarks in response to a reporter’s question as to whether immunization status could be used as an employment issue by a boss.

“The bill has not been discussed and has not entered into the employment mandates. … And my take would be, you know, it wouldn’t be appropriate to impose or ban either direction, ”DeSantis said. “But I think forcing it or banning it, anyway, wouldn’t be something we would do. But the vaccination passport, just to be clear, it did not delve into the context of the job. ”

On Monday, DeSantis took the opposite stance on the law he signed, saying it allowed him to fine local governments that require vaccinations as a condition of their employment.

“No one should lose their job because of this issue,” DeSantis said, seeking to present the debate as a labor rights issue.

Asked about the change of mind about the scope of the law, Pushaw said that “the governor’s remarks in May were made long before anyone proposed the kind of overbreadth and massive violation of medical privacy. that we have seen in recent days, especially with the announcement of the Biden administration.

Earlier this month, DeSantis made another twist in its vaccine posts. On September 3, he told another press conference that a person’s decision not to get the vaccine “really doesn’t impact me or anyone else.” But unvaccinated people pose a risk to others because they may be more likely to contract and spread Covid. Days later, DeSantis denied making the remarks when questioned by a reporter.

The DNC happily showcased the controversy in a Twitter video juxtaposing the governor’s contradictions from time to time.

DeSantis predicted Tuesday that “Biden’s idea of ​​using government coercion and force” for vaccinations “would backfire.” And the governor pointed out that there was a correlation between the Biden administration’s decision to suspend the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines on April 13 and a sharp drop in new vaccinations.

“J&J’s break made him crash,” DeSantis said. “It was a huge mistake that was made. “

A poll released by Quinnipiac University at the end of August found that 74% of Floridians said they had either been vaccinated or planned to do so. Sixty-two percent of those polled supported an immunization mandate for healthcare workers and 60 percent supported mandates for teachers, although the number fell to just 50 percent of support for healthcare workers. other companies.

More than 49,000 Floridians have died from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since the end of July, more than 10,000 deaths – or 20% of the global total – have been added to the balance sheet. In terms of Covid death rate, Florida ranks 12^e the highest in the nation. He was 27^e highest in February, before the Delta variant wreaked havoc on the state.

The latest CDC figures show more than 11.8 million Floridians are fully vaccinated, or about 55.2% of the population. That’s higher than any other Southern state other than Virginia and 21^st over all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Christian Zeigler, vice president of the Florida Republican Party, defended DeSantis’ record, saying the governor was realistic about the dangers of the disease and the government’s power to stop it.

“The media, Democrats and critics are trying to link him or define him as anti-vaxx,” Zeigler said, “even though he has already been attacked for being pro-vaxx and is just pushing us forward with a pandemic unbearable permanently mode. ”

Arek Sarkissian contributed to this report.