Florida Governor Ron DeSantis once again attacked the media when he suggested a bias in pandemic coverage on Wednesday, despite concerns about more contagious strains of COVID-19 potentially spreading in meetings celebrating the victory of the Buccaneers from Tampa Bay at the Super Bowl.
“The media is concerned about this, obviously,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Venice.
“You don’t care so much when it’s a peaceful protest,” he continued. “You don’t care so much if you’re celebrating a Biden election. You only care if you don’t like people. “
DeSantis has routinely stated that there is prejudice against conservatives and Republicans, especially among reporters who have asked difficult and sometimes uncomfortable questions about how the governor is dealing with the public health crisis.
But when a journalist asked DeSantis about the spread of a more contagious variant of the virus in the context of broadcast events after the Super Bowl, the governor interpreted this as an unwarranted blow to the home team.
“I’m a fan of the Bucs,” proclaimed the governor. “I am very proud of what they did on Sunday night.”
The Bucs’ hometown scheduled a boat parade on Wednesday afternoon along the Hillsborough River – a celebration that officials said was more conducive to social detachment. They invited fans to participate, but encouraged them to wear masks and keep their distance along the Tampa Riverwalk.
After the Buccaneers’ victory, celebrations erupted across the region – and caused crowds without masks to invade the streets.
DeSantis himself did not appear to be wearing a mask – at least at times – while participating in the Super Bowl. Later, he joked that he couldn’t drink with a mask, according to Politico’s report.
“How the hell am I going to get a beer with a mask on? Come on, ”said the governor, quoted by a Politico reporter.
The public health consequences of the commemorative meetings will not be known for weeks, said Dr. Jay Wolfson, professor of public health and associate dean of the University of South Florida medical school.
“It is very difficult to punish people who wanted to let go this time. We’ve been in prison for a year, ”he said. “Now we are going to sit down and do surveillance and monitoring.”
The Florida Department of Health has reported nearly 1.8 million people infected with the disease since the outbreak began a year ago. More than 28,000 have died so far.
Although hospitalizations for the virus have declined – dropping to less than 5,000, according to the state census on Wednesday – concerns remain about any additional victims.
Of particular concern are the new strains of the virus that are most contagious, including a variant first detected in the UK last year, which may now be establishing itself in Florida.
There are now 343 known cases of the UK variant in the Sunshine State – more than double what was detected in California, which has almost twice the population of Florida.
State health officials said the high number is also an indication of the state’s most robust testing program for the new variants.
The spread of the most contagious forms of the virus is also causing concern about the effectiveness of current vaccines against new variants.
“We have seen no data or any evidence to suggest that these vaccines are ineffective,” the governor said at a news conference, adding that his state would keep going in its effort to vaccinate its sizable elderly population.
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Follow Bobby Caina Calvan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BobbyCalvan
Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
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