White House press secretary Jen Psaki recently tried to criticize Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and it didn’t go as she planned. She blamed DeSantis for breaking the record over the weekend with the highest number of reported cases in a day. She emphasized that there are steps the governor can take in stopping the spread, including school mask mandates and allowing kids to wear them. She encouraged people to continue wearing masks and for states to implement mask mandates in school, despite it creating vaccine hesitancy.
Psaki ended her swipe at DeSantis by suggesting that “leaders are going to have to choose whether they’re going to follow public health guidelines or whether they’re going to follow politics.”That’s a bold thing to say from an administration that changes their science every week.
But DeSantis’ office pointed out how the White House should be more concerned with the flip-flopping of the CDC than what the Sunshine state does. Their confusing communications have led to vaccine hesitancy across the country. They also clarified that DeSantis made mask-wearing optional for students but did not prohibit them.
DeSantis clarified that they are allowing parents to decide whether or not their children will wear masks and that they’ve continued to hold over 50 vaccine-specific events. DeSantis has tweeted over 100 times about the vaccine-specific events and has talked about the value of vaccines at least 1,600 times in over 100 different public appearances.
“Stating that vaccinated people should wear masks and socially distance is implying that the vaccines do not change anything, which is the wrong message for our federal government to be promoting,” DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw said.
Pushaw went on to say that Gov. DeSantis vows to protect vulnerable Floridians instead of playing politics with the pandemic. He has not followed the mess of the public health messaging which has told vaccinated individuals a wide range of answers. First, the vaccinated must wear masks, now they don’t. Gov. DeSantis just decided not to follow their guidance, which changes week by week and follows no basis in real scientific data.
“By dismissively ignoring Governor DeSantis’ efforts to protect vulnerable Floridians, Psaki is the one playing politics with the pandemic,” Pushaw said.
Many medical experts have also appeared on CNN and pointed out that the Delta variant isn’t stopped by masks because it is “more contagious but less deadly.” Left-leaning news outlets have stopped pushing mask mandates because they know it only creates vaccine hesitancy, but the White House has attempted to try and jump back on the mask bandwagon.
Even Pushaw pointed out how government mandates don’t stop the spread of COVID-19. She pointed to states such as Texas, where COVID-19 cases significantly declined after the mask mandate was lifted. She said this has more to do with a “seasonal surge” in the state than imposing mask mandates. California instilled mandatory masking for months last year and still hit a single-day record for cases in January.
If the White House were so worried about COVID-19, they’d focus less on what the state of Florida does and more on the number of infected migrants pouring through the southern border. The only reason they’d aim at DeSantis is that he’s done nearly everything right in the face of those who have tried to push everything wrong. Politics should be the last thing Psaki brings up, especially after how Dems handled the pandemic. They spent an entire year pushing an anti-science narrative based on politics while Florida was trying to get people back to work.
