Ron DeSantis vs. Ron DeSantis on Covid-19

Brut America

May: “We succeeded.” June: “The virus doesn’t just disappear.” Ron DeSantis vs. Ron DeSantis before and after Florida coronavirus cases surge at new records.

Transcript

00:00We've succeeded, and I think that people just don't want to recognize it because it challenges

00:05their narrative, it challenges their assumption.

00:08It seemed like that as we got into kind of the end of May, beginning of June, COVID fell

00:14out of the news.

00:15People were focusing on a lot of the demonstrations, all these other things.

00:18And I think folks just assumed, hey, maybe this is gone.

00:21It's not gone.

00:22We knew that from the beginning.

00:24It's not the way these things work.

00:25You got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks

00:30about how Florida was going to be just like New York.

00:33Wait two weeks, Florida's going to be next.

00:35Just like Italy, wait two weeks.

00:36Well, hell, we're eight weeks away from that, and it hasn't happened.

00:40If I honestly thought it would end tomorrow, I would do cartwheels and I would tell people

00:45that.

00:46But I said from the beginning, even as we got through that first peak, we moved into

00:50the end of April and May, that the virus doesn't just disappear.

00:55Even when it's down, to the extent people thought maybe it comes back in the fall, there's

01:00still prevalence, I think, throughout the whole year.

01:03And that's just the reality.

01:04So we're going to have to live with that.

01:07I think Northeast Florida has really done well.

01:10A lot of people were saying, what is that now, over a month ago, month and a half ago,

01:14how everything was going to be so bad here.

01:16Never happened.

01:17And no one talks about it anymore.

01:19It's like you come through, you do a drive-by smear from out of state, and then you just

01:23move on.

01:24Well, I don't forget that.

01:26Now, obviously, as we got into May and we had a very low caseload, low positivity, got

01:33into June, COVID kind of fell off the headlines.

01:37I think people were naturally just wanting to more get back into a normal swing of things.

01:41Well, now you still want to be vigilant, particularly with a lot of younger carriers out there.

01:47People are going back to restaurants and stores right now.

01:50Would you personally feel safe taking your wife to a restaurant or a coffee shop?

01:54Absolutely.

01:55And here's the thing.

01:56Throughout this whole time, people have been going to Costco.

02:00They've been going to the grocery store.

02:01They've been doing, it's not like people have not been doing anything.

02:04So I think sitting, particularly, we really want to promote outdoor, because I think the

02:10data is very clear about the transmission being more significant in indoor and closed

02:16environments.

02:17I would absolutely go, and I'd have no problem doing it.

02:21Now, I have not been, I have not done a lot of shopping during this time period, and my

02:25wife has not, just because we obviously have had our hands full.

02:28But I'd have no problem whatsoever doing that right now.

02:32You're seeing cases across the entire Sunbelt, and I'm not exactly sure why you're seeing

02:38it there as opposed to other places.

02:40But one of the things that I think is a factor is as it gets warmer in Florida, people want

02:45to beat the heat.

02:46They want to go inside.

02:47They want to do air conditioning.

02:48So if they're having a party or getting together, they're much more likely to be doing that

02:52indoors, in the AC, in a closed space.

02:57That is going to increase the risk of transmission of the coronavirus.

03:02We did not go the way of Italy.

03:04We did not go the way of New York City.

03:07In fact, we've done much, much better than either of those places.

03:11When you flatten the curve, you will have the infections spread out longer.

03:17If you don't flatten the curve, it goes up, and then it kind of crashes down.

03:20So flatter curve means you're still going to have cases.

03:23We said that from the beginning, that the virus isn't gone.

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