“We were successful and people just don’t want to admit it,” he was furious. Then, pointing his finger at the journalists, he scolded the press: “There are many people in their profession who spoke poetically for weeks and weeks about what Florida was going to be like New York,” he said.
As hot-button fights continue, so does the spread of the virus among ordinary Floridians. The state topped the total Covid-19 case count in New York, with 414,511 and on the rise. Only California, with its largest population, has recorded more. Hospitalizations in Florida have increased and ICU capacity across the state is declining. On Saturday, the state Health Care Administration Agency reported that only 17% of ICU beds were still available. And in heavily affected Miami-Dade County, the virus’s positivity rate exceeded 19%, almost double its target.
DeSantis, a close political ally of Donald Trump who made the president’s support the centerpiece of his 2018 campaign for governor, has stayed in line with messages from the White House. But a politically unknown picture looms for DeSantis if the situation in Florida doesn’t improve rapidly, and along with that the numbers of Trump polls in the state. The president in an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News last Sunday hinted that his public support for DeSantis may be reaching its limit.
“We will put out the flames. And in some cases we will put out simply by burning coals. We also have burning coals,” Trump said, speaking about the coronavirus across the country. “We have embers and we have flames. Florida became more like a flame, but it’s … it’s going to be under control.”
DeSantis has been in contact with or close to Trump on at least two occasions since the interview. First, he spoke to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence last Wednesday. A day later, his press office revealed that DeSantis had discussed with Pence, who visited Miami on Monday, the state’s need for the antiviral drug Remdesivir. The next day, DeSantis said a shipment of 11,000 vials was on the way.
The content of his conversation with the President was not disclosed.
When asked about the governor’s remarks in May, and the critics’ suggestion that he spoke too triumphantly, too soon, spokesman Fred Piccolo said DeSantis has always been direct with his constituents.
“To say that (Governor DeSantis) took a victory lap is unfair,” Piccolo told CNN. “The Governor has an obligation to report progress against Covid-19 to the public and is doing it on a regular basis. He has delivered good and bad news, but he has always done it honestly and focused on the data. The Governor is a husband, father, and political leader who wants to get back to normal as fast as the rest of us. That’s why he’s traversing the state, asking Floridians to take the necessary precautions to move in the right direction. “
Mixed messages
The mixed message from administration leaders continued on Saturday afternoon when Halsey Beshears, secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, announced plans to meet with bar and brewery owners to chart a path to bring back to the clients.
“We will develop a safe, smart and step-by-step plan based on input, science and relative facts on how to reopen as soon as possible,” Beshears tweeted. Less than 24 hours later, the state reported 9,259 new cases, the 23rd time in July that the daily case count exceeded 9,000.
It announced another 8,892 on Monday. The total death toll in the state is now close to 6,000 people.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican, said “it would be a horrible decision” to open bars now, voiced a similar concern for schools, noting “the question of whether decisions (made by the state ) are data driven or political. “
Public health concerns seemed to come to the background of politics when the state issued its mandate for a full reopening of the schools. But last week, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths on the rise, DeSantis took a half step back from that directive, saying it would support teachers and parents who felt their safety this fall demanded a return to remote learning.
His statement came amid an increase in Covid-19 infections among children under the age of 18. For eight days, there has been a 34% jump in positive tests and a 23% increase in hospitalizations. The figures, from the state Department of Health, also showed that the positivity rate among minors was 1 percentage point overall, but was close to 20% in Miami-Dade and up to 25.3% in Martin County on the Coast. from the state treasury.
From the start of the pandemic, DeSantis, while attributing bad news to the influx of people from states like New York, aggressively courted professional sports leagues and, after the North Carolina governor effectively rejected Trump’s plans to celebrate a convention in Charlotte. North Carolina said it would welcome a re-nomination party in Jacksonville.
But on Thursday, Trump abruptly announced that the activities of the Republican National Convention in Florida City, including his acceptance speech, would not continue, citing the security risk.
“I looked at my team and said that the timing for this event is not right. It just isn’t right,” Trump said at the White House. “To have a great convention, this is not the right time.”
Trump’s decision could have been more of a political gamble, with new campaign manager Bill Stepien and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel presenting the option to cancel as an opportunity to earn political points, according to a Republican source with knowledge of the process. . Trump’s approval for the management of the coronavirus has declined precipitously in recent months, along with a growing public confidence deficit that has coincided with his numbers of competing face-to-face polls with alleged Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
A CNN poll released Sunday showed Biden with a 5 percentage point lead, 51% to 46%, in Florida, where Trump has been second since March. The gap has widened in other polls, including a Quinnipiac University poll last week, which showed Biden 51% more than Trump’s 38%.
DeSantis and Trump could also face a new controversy that made headlines with the news Monday that Major League Baseball had postponed two games after reports that more than a dozen Miami Marlins players and staff tested positive for the coronavirus during its series season opener in Philadelphia this weekend.
The Marlins did not travel to their Miami home, as planned, Sunday night for their opening game, which was scheduled for Monday. They will receive additional tests, according to MLB. The Philadelphia Phillies, who shared a field with the Marlins for three days, were supposed to host the New York Yankees on Monday night. It is unclear exactly where and when the outbreak began, with the Marlins playing a couple of exhibition games in Atlanta last Tuesday and Wednesday.
Spoke too soon
Florida’s decline, and the political implications surrounding it, have been seen more clearly in light of DeSantis’ early tone in discussing his handling of the crisis, which initially did not affect the state on the scale of what New York saw in March and April. That narrative, promoted by some in the conservative media and enthusiastically adopted by DeSantis, is now counterproductive.
On the morning that DeSantis touted his state’s history of coronaviruses outside the White House in late May, National Review’s Rich Lowry published a story, with an interview with DeSantis, titled, “Where is Ron DeSantis going to apologize? ? ” – a piece that caught skeptical reporters and liberal critics of the governor.
“DeSantis and his team have been closely following the science from the beginning, so they forged a nuanced approach,” Lowry wrote, “but one that focused like a laser on the most vulnerable population, those in nursing homes.”
But now, two months later, patients and residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are increasingly affected by the virus. The Ocoee Long-Term Care and Rehabilitation Center near Orlando confirmed to CNN on Sunday that 66 of its residents have tested positive for the virus, with a third of them now hospitalized, while 30 staff members they are also infected.
As of Saturday, 46% of all Covid-related deaths in Florida have been linked to long-term care facilities, according to the state Department of Health.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management launched a second round of “Incident Management Teams” last week, with 50 of them assigned to evaluate 4,000 locations. DeSantis said the state is dedicating a dozen facilities exclusively to treating patients who test positive for the coronavirus.
In the May story, DeSantis shared his initial concerns about the possibility of a widespread closure, noting that he had done his homework in past pandemics and left without a clear idea of whether they would work or what the side effects would be. would be.
“So I was also very concerned about things on that side,” DeSantis told Lowry, “and I think that’s why I had a more nuanced and balanced approach than some of the other governors. Because there are some of these health officials they say, “You have to do this. This is science, “or whatever. But in reality, these were unknown territories.”
Rosa Flores, Randi Kaye, Denise Royal and Kristina Sgueglia from CNN contributed to this story.
.
