Ron DeSantis, follow Donald Trump’s advice on boosters

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Tossed by Gov. Ron DeSantis wore MAGA hats to the crowd before climbing the podium and pleading with Floridians to vote for Donald Trump, during the Make America Great Again Victory Rally in November 2020. Daniel A. Varela [email protected]

Donald Trump’s “tell it like it is” style is often a cover for fanatical, insensitive comments. But just as a broken watch is right twice a day, the former president is right this week,

Trump said Tuesday he received a COVID-19 vaccine booster and called on politicians who refused to say if they got an “anorexia.”

Immediately after his comment on the far-right cable channel One America News, there was speculation about whether that was a jab at Trump 2.0, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. It’s no secret that the mentor and student are in a collision as DeSantis’s profile rises nationwide as he looks forward to a 2024 presidential run.

DeSantis, who received the single-dose vaccine at Johnson & Johnson last year without any tremors, declined to say directly if he got a booster shot.

“So, I have done, whatever I have done. The normal shot. And at the end of the day it’s people’s individual decisions about what they want to do, ”DeSantis told Fox News in December. A spokesman told Politico that he’s not“ privy to private medical decisions of the governor. “

DeSantis aggressively promoted vaccinations for seniors when the shots first became available, but you don’t hear the governor talking about boosters these days. He prefers to spend his time selling “Don’t Fauci my Florida” campaign merchandise and saying Floridians ’masks don’t work, while his Ivy League-educated surgeon general is skeptical of vaccines.

DeSantis is not alone in his crusade against proper public health measures such as vaccine mandates and masks. Other Republican governors have adopted similar tactics, covering it with a “personal freedom” mantle that puts the lives of their unvaccinated followers at risk. But at least some of those governors, like Georgia’s Brian Kemp, praised the vaccines and shared that they received boosters.

So, why so coy, Gov. DeSantis?

Less than 30% of Floridians received a booster before Dec. 20, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. In nursing homes, the situation is worse: only 23.8% of residents were boosted, below the national average, according to AARP. We need all the help we can get.

Perhaps the governor drank his own Kool-Aid whose vaccines were just “personal choice” like hair color. Or he believes Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who stood next to a smiling DeSantis at a rally in October and asked about vaccines, saying “we don’t yet know everything we should know about” them. Millions of people around the world have been safely vaccinated and data shows that vaccines protect against serious illness.

FL’s new political Surgeon General Joseph Ladopo, along with Desantis, has now become the first SG in the U.S. to question the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, saying experts ignore: “People need to stay with their intuition and their sensibilities. ” pic.twitter.com/1H6tVQzwWb

– Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 21, 2021

Perhaps DeSantis takes Ladapo’s advice to supporters to “stay with their intuition and their sensibilities.” The governor’s “sensibilities” about the pandemic can best be described as disrespectful in the face of 63,000 COVID-19 deaths in Sunshine State.

Or maybe DeSantis actually knows better. But he understands that those who are skeptical of the vaccine are his constituents, one he inherited from Trump, who was booed by supporters last year for revealing that he got a booster.

“You have to say it, whether you have it or not,” Trump said Tuesday. “Tell me. But the truth is I think vaccines have saved tens of millions around the world. I don’t really have any side effects.”

Only Trump may be able to challenge Trumpism. Remember, Trump first beat the pandemic in 2020, sold questionable remedies and even suggested bleach as an antidote, all of which were detrimental to the country. So it shouldn’t be hard for DeSantis to utter simple words to say if he got a booster. We need more than that. We need a governor with the courage in this political climate to encourage Floridians to roll up their sleeves.

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This story was originally published on January 13, 2022 3:28 PM.

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