Ramon Alexander: Ron DeSantis ‘needs to let go of his ego’ to save lives

By not resuming daily COVID-19 reporting, Gov. Ron DeSantis is keeping local officials and the residents they serve from making educated decisions that could save lives, Democratic Florida House members said.

The less dependable, up-to-date information there is available, the more likely it is for inaccurate, misleading and false information to spread and lead people to make the wrong choices, said Rep. Ramon Alexander of Tallahassee.

By withholding information, he said, DeSantis is playing political games with the public’s health.

“There are many false narratives that are being reported,” he said. “Unfortunately, the narrative of winning has overshadowed the narrative of making sure that we address the largest public health crisis in modern day history in an appropriate, adult-like manner.”

Alexander, whom House Democrats chose in May to lead their Caucus in the absence of Rep. Ben Diamond, led a virtual conference Thursday on “the dire need for the (Florida) Department of Health to return to reporting daily COVID-19 data.”

The department stopped providing daily information in early June.

Fellow Reps. Carlos Smith of Orlando, Christine Hunschofsky of Coconut Creek, Dianne Hart of Tampa, Patricia Williams of Pompano Beach and Marie Woodson of Hollywood joined the press conference.

Alexander took a swipe at comments DeSantis made earlier in the day about possibly bringing back daily data compiled and sorted by the state, which were more detailed than case data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes daily.

Waves of infection “are not necessarily uniform” across the state, DeSantis said, and breaking the information down county-by-county “may not be a bad idea going forward.”

Alexander thinks that’s an understatement.

“‘May’ is not good enough,” he said. “We’re a football state, (and) you absolutely cannot make halftime adjustments at the end of the game … The Governor needs to provide leadership and let go of his ego … so that everyone can make the necessary adjustments during the game (and) more people won’t die (or) end up on ventilators.”

More than 40,000 people have died of the virus in Florida, according to a joint report from the CDC and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which listed a 28% week-over-week uptick in new COVID-19 cases Aug. 10. That’s about 0.19% of the state population.

A 146% increase in new COVID-19 deaths in the state, 631, represented the country’s highest total of new fatalities and the third-highest death rate among all states.

The report also showed 28% of hospitals are reporting staff shortages.

In March, DeSantis signed an executive order banning any county or municipality from fining people or businesses due to COVID-19 safety violations. He signed another order in July barring local School Boards from requiring masks in classrooms. Some school districts, like Broward, said they will defy the order.

DeSantis and other high-profile Florida Republicans, like U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, have repeatedly said vaccines, not masks, are the surest way for people to safeguard themselves against the virus, including the highly transmissible delta variant.

About 49% of Floridians are fully vaccinated, and 59% have received at least one dose of vaccine.

Vaccinations may be the best answer to the problem, Smith said, but a common-sense safeguard now would be to allow localities to mandate masking where and how they deem necessary.

“Even if millions of Floridians got vaccinated tomorrow and we know that that vaccine will be extremely effective, it will be another five or six weeks before those individuals are fully protected, which doesn’t change the current state of crisis that our hospitals are in right now at this moment,” he said. “What will change (things are) real mitigation efforts — lifting up the restrictions not just in our public schools from requiring masks, social distancing and other things, but lifting those same restrictions on our county mayors and our city mayors who have been totally handcuffed in their ability to deal with this crisis.”