Few Republican governors embraced the party's denial and dismissal of the COVID-19 pandemic than Ron DeSantis of Florida.
DeSantis completely reopened Florida just after the pandemic's first wave. In the face of the deadlier Delta variant, DeSantis has forbid private businesses from requiring their customers to be vaccinated, and he threatened to withhold funds from school districts who defied his ban on mask mandates for students.
As the Delta Variant overtook the nation, Florida's cases skyrocketed, jeopardizing hospital availability. Florida broke its all-time pandemic record for the daily number of new cases and hit reached an all-time high for hospitalizations as well, with over 11 thousand Floridians hospitalized with the virus. Nearly 60 thousand Floridians have died of the virus and the state has suffered more than three million cases.
Fortunately, this trend reversed in recent months and Florida now has the lowest COVID case rate in the nation—a development with which conservatives immediately began crediting DeSantis, asserting that his pandemic recklessness and bulwark against public safety guidelines was exemplary.
New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz was one such conservative.
In a tweet highlighting her recent piece crediting DeSantis for the lower transmission rate, Markowicz suggested that Florida's lack of COVID precautions saved it because "life simply went on."
Florida has lowest COVID-19 case rate in the country. They did it without vaccine mandates, without mask mandates i… https://t.co/yjy7DcVWTC— Karol Markowicz (@Karol Markowicz) 1635474388.0
People found the comments dismissive of the tens of thousands of people who died of COVID in Florida.
Hi, Floridian here. Life did not go on for 59,495 Floridians, nor the tens of thousands more with long Covid. If yo… https://t.co/zNpfqDM594— Adam Weinstein (@Adam Weinstein) 1635514778.0
Actually "life" did not go on. Thousands and thousands of people died. Florida has one of the highest per capit… https://t.co/rII91ddCsj— Judd Legum (@Judd Legum) 1635521136.0
Please read my column, “I’m Fine with Thousands of My Neighbors Dying as Long As I’m Not Slightly Inconvenienced” https://t.co/uXCFB6whLc— Jason O. Gilbert (@Jason O. Gilbert) 1635516421.0
Thousands of people had to needlessly die when there was a vaccine, and hospitals came close to their breaking poin… https://t.co/05KdF6E6j9— Emily C. Singer (@Emily C. Singer) 1635514166.0
why yes, 60,000 deaths later we emerged unscathed https://t.co/qk6NV9l4Ub— Nate Monroe (@Nate Monroe) 1635516092.0
Narrator: In fact, life did not go on for 60,000 Floridians who were killed by the virus https://t.co/x9fR39e2cq— David Sirota (@David Sirota) 1635514836.0
The praise didn't hold up to scrutiny either.
Even by DeSantis' own standards--protecting the elderly--Florida did a remarkably poor job, notching the highest pe… https://t.co/OwRFXbUG8m— Christian Vanderbrouk (@Christian Vanderbrouk) 1635513851.0
The timeline goes: 1) Florida was relatively spared by early COVID wave 2) By early 2021, its COVID deaths-per-cap… https://t.co/9Kdne8yZFz— Derek Thompson (@Derek Thompson) 1635522288.0
Not the best day to post this since Florida has now moved up to 7th in the country in deaths per capita, the highes… https://t.co/5q6vrtU6AR— Tim Miller (@Tim Miller) 1635514776.0
This has happened each wave. Cases/deaths skyrocket in FL and Texas and then when it finally slows down after burni… https://t.co/NvGSUWFaP4— joe (@joe) 1635516679.0
Markowicz has already doubled down on her position on Twitter.