August was Florida’s deadliest month of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a new batch of delayed COVID-19 deaths reported Monday, Florida lost more than 6,600 people to the coronavirus in August, an average of 213 deaths a day. The newest seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths in Florida, 346, amounts to 23 percent of the 1,498 deaths recorded in the entire U.S. each day, according COVID-19 data compiled by The Washington Post.
“While Florida’s vaccination rate is slightly higher than the national average, the Sunshine State has an outsize population of elderly people, who are especially vulnerable to the virus; a vibrant party scene; and a Republican governor who has taken a hard line against mask requirements, vaccine passports and business shutdowns,” The Associated Press reports. Florida’s seven-day average of 1.61 deaths per 100,000 residents is the highest in the U.S., where the seven-day average is 0.45 deaths per 100,000 people, the Post reports.
Heath Mayo, a conservative lawyer and writer, compared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) pandemic management with that of another Republican governor of a populous state, Charlie Baker in Massachusetts. Baker “has put his head down and made tough calls to keep his state safe,” Mayo tweeted. “He hasn’t been on Fox News, he hasn’t been fundraising in Texas, he hasn’t been spouting off anti-Fauci quips. He’s just been succeeding.”
Other Republican governors like Larry Hogan of maryland have done well too. It’s really not a mystery. DeSantis is determined to be the Donald Trump of GOP governors and the results are clear.
And again, I hate to bring up the obvious, but California also has warm weather, beaches, tourism, young partyers, a large diverse population, some of whom are hard to reach and in traditionally skeptical communities. But we’ve had a better vaccination rate and better results and it’s largely because the government has been willing to enforce mitigation tactics to curb the spread among the unvaccinated. It’s not complicated.