Posted on 11/28/21
| News Source: Daily Mail
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis may be vindicated for his refusal to impose pandemic lockdowns, as well as vaccine and mask mandates, after the Sunshine State posted the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths per capita in the nation, The Daily Mail reports.
On Friday, the Sunshine State reported 1,393 new cases of COVID-19, roughly six cases per every 100,000 residents. The state also reported just one death in the past week.
By contrast, Michigan leads the nation in daily coronavirus cases per capita – with a 7-day rolling average of 560 per 100,000 residents – despite Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer imposing some of the harshest restrictions in the nation.
DeSantis – an early favorite in the 2024 presidential race depending on what Donald Trump does – took a victory lap after the latest figures were announced.
‘It just shows once again the success of Governor DeSantis’s science-based and data-based policies,’ DeSantis Press Secretary Christina Pushaw told Fox News Digital.
‘He’s always made decisions based on the data and that continued even during the Delta surge this summer what he realized would help was not mask mandates in school or lockdowns but provide treatment that actually works.’
DeSantis has engaged in unparalleled legal fights to ban mask and vaccine mandates in the state, sparking condemnation from the left-leaning media and high-ranking health officials for his handling of the pandemic. In September, DeSantis was branded an ‘Angel of Death’ in a Vanity Fair article that criticized his measures and blamed him for ‘preventing (his) constituents from contacting the virus and dying.’
Florida’s numbers are bucking the national trend, where cases already rising in the and expected to spike during the holiday season. And that was before the threat posed by the new South African ‘variant of concern’ Omicron.