In a new video, the anti-Trump conservative group known as The Lincoln Project went after Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for his deception surrounding the spread of COVID-19 in his state. On August 3, DeSantis insisted that Florida hospitals were “open for business” in an attempt to gloss over concerns about high levels of hospitalization with COVID-19 in his state — although data released on the very day that he made that dubious remark showed Florida hitting a then-record for COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state.
Florida has since flown past that record hospitalization rate, while in late July — before DeSantis’s claim that hospitals were “open for business” — a large hospital group known as AdventHealth Central Florida put all non-emergency surgeries on hold to free up resources for COVID-19 patients. The move directly contradicted DeSantis’s claim that hospitals were systematically “open for business” according to any reasonable estimation! In other words, DeSantis is a liar, and The Lincoln Project highlights this grim reality in their newly released video going after the governor. The video pairs footage of DeSantis’s remark about hospitals being “open for business” with graphics showing rising rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
As a message on screen in the video puts it:
‘Ron DeSantis is lying. Floridians are dying.’
Check out the video below:
Numbers don't lie, @GovRonDeSantis does. pic.twitter.com/LcAx2HLERM
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 21, 2021
Besides his deception regarding the basic reality on the ground in his state, DeSantis has also fervently resisted basic safety precautions like mandates to wear face masks in schools. He imposed an executive order seeking to block such mandates, although he’s now been sued over that measure, with certain school districts opting to implement mask mandates in defiance of DeSantis in the meantime. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is a Democrat, publicly shared on Saturday that the latest data showed less than 5 percent of Florida ICU beds open, with over 17,200 COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state. Hospitalizations have reached such a level that in Orlando, local government and utility officials have asked residents to urgently conserve water because supplies of the liquid oxygen used to treat water have been depleted. The oxygen has been used, both in the Orlando area and elsewhere, for COVID-19 patients.
