It’s not California, home of America’s strictest mask and vaccine requirements. Nor is it Vermont, even though 71 percent of residents there have been fully inoculated — the most in the country.
No, the state with the fewest daily COVID cases per capita is the same one that recently had more than any other: Florida.
Florida has the lowest COVID-19 case rate in the country. They did it without vaccine mandates, without mask mandates in school, and with no restrictions on businesses. Life simply went on.
During the summer, when Florida was undergoing a spike in cases, the media was quick to report the elevating numbers. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was a frequent target for the blame. His sensible moves, such as refusing to force kids to wear masks, was treated as akin to murder by the media.
Desantis was criticized by Biden back in August, saying: “Some state officials are passing laws that forbid people from doing the right thing. I say to the governors, please help. If you’re not going to help, get out of the way of the people that are trying to do the right thing.”
During the past two months, however, Florida’s daily average has plummeted by more than 90 percent, to about 1,700 cases, or eight for every 100,000 residents. That’s roughly half of California’s current COVID rate and less than a quarter of Vermont’s.
Florida is doing better in per-capita cases and deaths from COVID than states that put in universal mask mandates and lockdowns. But you won’t hear that from the media. Now that DeSantis’ strategy has worked, they have quietly moved on without acknowledging their predictions of doom were wrong.
It’s a lesson that we need to quickly learn. Encouraging vaccination is important, but ultimately COVID will be something we need to handle with less hysteria going forward, and DeSantis has been a model for that.
The targeting of DeSantis is, of course, political. Widely considered the front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, DeSantis will continue to be a bull’s-eye for Democrats. But he’s shown again and again that he puts Floridians first and doesn’t listen to outside pressure to conform.
Along with his new surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, DeSantis is making data-driven decisions instead of impulsive ones made out of misplaced fear. In New York last month, for example, Gov. Kathy Hochul put 2-year-olds back in masks despite all data showing that was unnecessary. In New York City, we’re about to lose sanitation workers, police officers and firefighters over the vaccine mandate despite the fact that a vaccine mandate has not been shown to reduce COVID-19 cases.
Florida has shown the time for lockdowns and mask mandates is over. When will the rest of the country learn?
Citizens of Earth Unite against treasonous tyranny