Tipsheet

The NYT's Hit Piece on Florida's COVID Policies Buries the Lede

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  July 27, 2023 1:05 PM

Because the Left -- and certain others -- continue to attack Florida for political reasons, we will continiue to defend Florida against scurrilous claims. One realm in which Gov. Ron DeSantis deserves enormous credit is his leadership during the COVID pandemic, which was data-driven, evidence-based, non-hysterical, and broadly successful, despite intense pressure and criticism directed at him at every turn. It is unsurprisingly that leftists, who pushed draconian lockdowns and abusive mandates, would never forgive DeSantis for getting it right. It's especially unfortunate that in his single-minded desire to again become the GOP nominee for president, Donald Trump is repeating many of their lies on this front. The New York Times recently published a negative story about DeSantis and Florida, which did briefly mention an exceptionally important truth:

Florida was framed as a callous experiment in mass murder at the hands of Ron DeSantis.  And it emerged from the pandemic with a better-than-average age-adjusted death rate (important, considering the state's disproportionately older population).  Beyond that outcome, however, are the many other ways in which the state grew and thrived during that dark period.  A more comprehensive scholarly look at state-by-state COVID policies, examining health outcomes, plus school closures, plus economic results, placed Florida near the top of the heap.  It ranked 6th out of 50 overall, and number one among large states.  Some of these numbers speak for themselves, and DeSantis' team is right to trumpet them, especially considering the relentless, partisan criticism that endlessly pelts the state and its leader:

Indeed, a group of southern states that generally bucked the Fauci establishment on COVID, and that aggressively reject Bidenomics, have emerged as an economic powerhouse:

Six fast-growing states in the South now add more to the national GDP than the Northeast, the perennial powerhouse, Bloomberg reports. Those six states — Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee — are in the middle of a "$100 billion wealth migration" as the U.S. economic center of gravity tilts south, Bloomberg notes. The switch happened during peak COVID. There's no sign it'll reverse. A flood of transplants helped steer about $100 billion in new income to the Southeast in 2020 and 2021 alone, while the Northeast bled out about $60 billion, Bloomberg writes from IRS data.

I'll say it again: To the extent that the US is avoiding a recession and avoiding more economic pain, the driving force behind that harm mitigation is governance that directly opposes what the president and his party are trying to do. Huge credit goes to people named Abbott, DeSantis, Kemp, Lee, and others.  The Wall Street Journal's editorial board focuses on Florida's achievements, stating indisputable facts that ought to matter a lot, no matter how many people try to ignore or distort them:

Mr. DeSantis’s strategy of focused protection was articulated in the Great Barrington Declaration, which progressives still revile despite its vindication. In 2020 Florida had the tenth lowest age-adjusted Covid death rate in the country, which was nearly 20% lower than California’s despite the Golden State’s prolonged lockdown. Progressives are implicitly conceding Mr. DeSantis’s strategy of focused protection succeeded by attacking him now for allegedly equivocating on vaccines. The smear is that the Governor at first backed Covid vaccines for seniors, but then declined to mandate the shots. He also didn’t hector young people to get them...Florida experienced a lower Covid death rate than most states in late 2021 and early 2022. The press likes to cherry-pick data and focus on discrete periods to present Mr. DeSantis as a grim-reaper. But Florida’s overall age-adjusted Covid death rate during the pandemic is 13% lower than the U.S. average and about the same as California’s.


Florida’s vaccination rate among seniors is 94.4%, similar to most Democratic-run states. About 79.6% of Floridians age 18 and over have received two doses, which is higher than most states, including many with Democratic Governors such as Michigan (71.6%), North Carolina (77.1%), and Wisconsin (77.7%). Progressives and Mr. Trump also won’t concede that Mr. DeSantis’s Covid strategy proved to be an economic boon. Between April 2020 and July 2022, 622,476 people moved to Florida from other states, including families who wanted children in school. Employment in Florida has grown by 7.4% since January 2020 versus 2.5% in California and a 1.2% decline in New York. The lockdown damage continues, but progressives can’t admit they were wrong. Nor can Mr. Trump. So they are trying to take down Mr. DeSantis for being right.

DeSantis' 2024 presidential bid has not gone according to plan thus far, and perhaps it'll ultimately fail. Regardless of how that story ends, the country owes him a debt of gratitude for leading thoughtfully and boldly during COVID, and bucking the trend. It's unforgivable that the GOP frontrunner, for crass and short-sighted political reasons, is aping garbage, left-wing attacks on this front. It's worrisome that Trump expresses no regrets about his Fauci-First approach to COVID governance, and has effectively endorsed harder, longer lockdowns in his knee-jerk blasts at DeSantis. But then again, such things are typical of Trumpworld, saying absolutely anything for perceived short-term gain, including outright lies and gaslighting to smear a man against whom they claim to hold an insurmountable lead. If nothing else, they're certainly not acting like it:

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