It’s not that Gov. Ron DeSantis opposes the vaccines (he got them himself) or that he has spoken negatively about them. But his strange opposition to vaccine mandates has caused his position to align more than ever with vaccine people. | Joe Raedle / Getty Images
MIAMI: Ron DeSantis is not an anti-vaccine. But he has begun to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are.
The Florida Governor’s clear, unadulterated public messages about the need for vaccines have been diluted in recent months, culminating in a press conference this week to sink President Joe Biden’s new vaccine mandate plan and threaten to fine the cities and counties that impose their vaccine. own mandates.
The event in the small town of Newberry, Florida, featured two anti-vaccine workers, one of whom falsely claimed he would not be shot because “it changes your RNA.” DeSantis at the time said nothing about misinformation, a standard point of conversation against the vaccine, and later declined to say why he did not correct the falsity.
“I don’t even remember him saying that, so I didn’t say anything,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday when asked about the previous day’s statements. DeSantis continued to discuss the benefits of vaccinations.
Another speaker DeSantis invited suggested that vaccines were deadly without mentioning the rarity it has or the extent to which more people die without being vaccinated than Covid. “My body, my choice,” he said, adopting the slogan of abortion rights advocates.
The inclusion of vaccine misinformation at a DeSantis press conference marks a major deviation from the strongest and most direct case it presented for vaccines earlier this year. The change of Republican governor – considered one of the top candidates in the 2024 presidential primary – coincides with more vocal voices against Republican Party vaccines, which went so far as to applaud former President Donald Trump for telling the people of Alabama that ” take the “” vaccines.
Biden’s huge push to require inoculations for 100 million Americans has paved the way for GOP top leaders to build support with the vaccine crowd, even though they still support vaccines. Other Republican governors, even in states where vaccination warrants have been used, were quick enough to backtrack on Biden’s plans.
DeSantis has been drifting in this direction for months. As the pace of vaccinations slowed both in Florida and across the country, and as the most devastating Covid wave that hit Florida began to flood the state over the summer, DeSantis comments on the need for more shots became more nuanced. This took a back seat in its promotion of monoclonal antibody treatments such as Regeneron, which began in earnest in mid-August, as the state broke records for new infections and hospitalizations.
“There is no doubt that this is a back-and-forth position [DeSantis] is confusing its followers, “said Aileen Marty, an epidemiologist at Florida International University.” This is one of the worst infectious diseases the human race has treated in a long time. And in a pandemic, it causes stress, anxiety. and fear.And a key way to deal with this is denial, so when you vocalize things that feed on people’s denial of a threat, you turn them off from doing what they need to do to reduce it. “That’s not a good thing.”
It’s not that DeSantis opposes vaccines (he got them himself) or that he has spoken negatively about them. But his strange opposition to vaccine mandates has caused his position to align more than ever with anti-vaccine people and those who do not want to be shot.
This opposition comes after the governor’s rejection of any kind of Covid-related restriction, from a ban on vaccine passports to a ban on local school districts from imposing mask warrants that do not include the possibility of exclusion for pairs. As Covid’s casualties increased, the toll ended the governor’s popularity in the state as he faces re-election in 2022.
At the same time, however, DeSantis’ clashes with Biden and his libertarian approach to Covid have made him intensely popular with strong conservatives, placing the Florida governor at the top of potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates. if Trump does not show up.
Governor spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said no one who saw DeSantis’ more than 50 public appearances promoting vaccination would accept the governor’s belief that vaccines change people’s molecular structure.
“Vaccination provides good protection against the serious outcomes of fully vaccinated people,” he said. “However, the science behind vaccines does not support the vaccine mandates of the Biden Administration.”
The DeSantis administration has rejected the suggestion that anti-vaccination sentiment and vaccination hesitation are largely a conservative phenomenon, noting that many of Florida’s unvaccinated are also usually young or non-white, two demographic trends that tend to to vote disproportionately democratic.
Some of DeSantis ’rhetoric also worried experts in recent weeks when, for example, he lamented that vaccines had not achieved herd immunity as promised and continued to mention“ advanced ”infections that occurred among vaccinated, although data indicate that such cases are rare. .
Critics have also noted that the governor’s Twitter account had not posted on “vaccines” or “vaccinations” since the spring, after embarking on a month-long trip to get shots for the elderly when supply was limited. .
The governor began to take a more complicated stance on vaccines during the spring legislative session, when he pushed for a ban on so-called vaccine passports that require people to prove the presence of shots before accessing a business service or government. But later, DeSantis contradicted his initial justification for the ban when he tried to use the vaccine passport ban as a legal basis to fine cities for enforcing vaccine warrants.
The day after the bill was signed, on May 4, DeSantis insisted on a press conference that only applied to people who wanted to “do basic things: restaurant, movie, plane” or a walk in a cruise (a cruise line has successfully sued to block the law so far). He made the statements in response to a journalist’s question about whether vaccination status could be used as a labor issue by a boss.
“The bill did not discuss or enter the labor mandates. … And my point of view would be, you know, that it would not be appropriate to command or ban either direction, ”said DeSantis. “But I think ordering it or banning it, in any case, would not be something we would do. But the vaccine passport, to be clear, did not delve into the work context.
On Monday, DeSantis took the opposite position with respect to the law he signed, claiming it allowed him to fine local governments that require vaccinations as a condition for their work.
“No one should lose their job on this issue,” DeSantis said, seeking to frame the debate as a workers ’rights issue.
Asked about the change in opinion on the scope of the law, Pushaw said that “the governor’s statements in May were made long before anyone had proposed the kind of extension and massive violation of medical privacy that we have seen the last days, especially with the announcement of the Biden Administration ”.
Earlier this month, DeSantis made another investment in its vaccine messaging. On Sept. 3, he said at another news conference that a person’s decision not to get vaccinated “really doesn’t affect anyone or me.” But unvaccinated people are a risk to others, as they may be more likely to contract and spread Covid. DeSantis days later denied making the statements when questioned by a journalist.
He DNC happily featured the controversy in a Twitter video juxtaposing the governor’s contradictions.
DeSantis predicted on Tuesday that the “idea of using coercion and government force” for Biden vaccinations “is going to skyrocket.” And the governor noted that there was a correlation between the Biden administration’s decision to pause the distribution of Johnson & Johnson shots on April 13 and a sharp drop in new vaccinations.
“J&J’s pause caused it to crash,” DeSantis said. “It was a big mistake that was made.”
A survey published by the University of Quinnipiac in late August found that 74% of Floridians said they had gotten a shot or planned to get one. Sixty-two percent of respondents supported a vaccine mandate for health workers and 60 percent supported mandates for teachers, although the figure fell to only 50 percent to give support for employees of other companies.
More than 49,000 Floridians have died from coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since the end of July, more than 10,000 deaths have been added (or 20% of the total). In terms of coveted mortality rates, Florida ranks 12thth highest in the nation. They were 27 years oldth highest in February, before the Delta variant swept the state.
The latest CDC numbers show that more than 11.8 million Floridians are completely vaccinated, about 55.2 percent of the population. This is superior to any southern state other than Virginia and 21c of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Christian Zeigler, vice president of the Florida Republican Party, defended DeSantis’ record, saying the governor has been realistic about the dangers of the disease and the government’s power to stop it.
“The media, Democrats and critics are trying to link it or define it as anti-vaxx,” Zeigler said, “even though it was previously attacked for being pro-vaxx and it simply moves us forward. a pandemic that is not permanently sustainable “mode”.
Arek Sarkissian contributed to this report.