Gov. DeSantis opens state parks during Northeast Florida victory lap

Gov. Ron DeSantis continued celebrating his administration’s performance on coronavirus response Friday.

The Governor returned to Jacksonville, a city he spotlighted as a success in flattening the curve, after it followed the state’s reopening lead this week, to announce that state parks will be open starting Monday.

The scene was set at a state park near the ocean.

“We’ve seen enough out of COVID-19,” DeSantis said, to know outdoor environments, sunlight, and other features of state parks are “lower risk” than indoor environments.

“Sunlight kills the virus quickly,” DeSantis said. “When you’re talking about open spaces, that’s a low risk environment … high reward for the people of Florida.’

DeSantis’ affection for Jacksonville is a matter of historical record. After the city reopened beaches last month, he told locals that people may call them “morons,” but he’d “take” them “every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

The Governor amplified his appreciation Friday.

“There (were) a lot of people that thought the sky was going to fall … like this was Lollapalooza on the beach,” DeSantis said Friday, regarding critics saying that Jacksonville opening up beaches would cause a public health catastrophe.

“People here were mocked,” the Governor continued. “I want to thank the local media here in Northeast Florida for fighting back against false narratives and actually putting the facts out, actually showing that people were behaving responsibly, and the Mayor and his compatriots at the beaches were doing a good job.”

“People thought the sky was going to fall because someone was walking her dog on the beaches,” he added.

“Cases have declined,” DeSantis noted, since the beaches’ opening, comparing Duval’s cases to “lunchtime in Queens.”

DeSantis has been less complimentary to both the Capitol press corps and the hated “Acela Media” that informs the left-liberal paradigms of the NY/DC corridor.

The Governor lauded the “fact-based, data-driven” approach to reopening the city