‘It wasn’t as bad as everyone was saying’: After blasting Ron DeSantis, comedian Bill Burr visits Florida

Image via AP.

Just a few weeks removed from vilifying Gov. Ron DeSantis for blocking local Florida governments and school districts from passing mask mandates, comedian Bill Burr offered an updated take on the state after a recent visit.

“I got the idea that I was going to go to Florida and it was going to be zombies walking around trying to vomit black sh** on me and I was going to die and never see my family again,” Burr said on his show, the Monday Morning Podcast. “I’ve got to be honest with you; it wasn’t as bad as everyone was saying.”

The Grammy-nominated stage, television, movie and podcast personality performed back-to-back shows Saturday, Aug. 28 at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood as part of an ongoing tour running through the end of the year.

Burr joked he felt “a little apocalyptic” after his most recent trip to South Florida.

“There’s a reason why that state is surrounded on three sides by water, because only Georgia and Alabama can deal with ’em,” he said. “It takes a special kind of you-know-what to handle (what’s) barely hanging onto this country.”

But in place among the horde of seemingly undead disease carriers with reflux issues Burr said he expected to see, he instead encountered people behaving considerately and safely.

“A lot of people were wearing masks. It’s not everyone just walking around like, you know, ‘f**k this,’ (though) there’s definitely the ‘f**k this’ people,” he said. “All I know is I got in and got out, took a rapid COVID test when I got back and I was fine. I kept the mask on. I still went to the gym — the only guy in the gym with a mask on (and no one gave) me sh**. It was perfect.”

Florida averaged more than 200 new COVID-19 deaths per day, in August,  marking the worst period of mortality the state has seen since the pandemic struck in March 2020.

Earlier in the month, Burr set his sights on DeSantis, who has banned so-called “vaccine passports” in Florida and is battling county governments and School Boards in and out of court to stop them from enforcing local masking rules, including withholding funds from school districts that defy his rules.

“DeSantis, whoever this guy is … says he disagrees on mask mandates,” Burr said on his podcast Aug. 9. “The amount of people who not only don’t even own a microscope or even have a pair of scrubs unless they went to some Halloween party who are literally questioning doctors — at this point, it’s just hilarious.”

Burr suggested that rather than doing what was scientifically most advisable to prevent the spread of the virus, DeSantis is choosing to pander to his political base at the expense of public health and safety.

“These f***ing piece of sh** politicians,” he said. “He knows what his fan base wants him to do, so that’s what the f**k he’s going to do.”