Florida Governor Downplays COVID Spike As Florida Becomes Nation's Top COVID Hot Spot

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attempted to downplay the massive surge in COVID cases in Florida this week by blaming it on the seasonal traffic that the state experiences from tourists. He said that we can likely expect a decline in cases in August as tourists head back home. Florida is leading the nation in new COVID cases, and there's no doubt that tourism is playing a role. But is also doesn't help that DeSantis is trying to do away with any local ordinances that would protect people from the virus, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

The state of Florida right now is leading the nation in new COVID cases. And in fact, over just the last week, new cases in the state have doubled, we are back to numbers that we hadn't seen since last summer. And of course our Trump loving governor, Ron DeSantis, is trying to make a comparison between the two. Like, oh, we haven't seen these numbers since last summer and we're seeing them again now, but don't worry, folks. It's just seasonal. It's because, you know, we, we're a tourist state. We have all these tourists coming in and the virus is spreading and yeah, it'll go back down in August, he assured people during a press conference earlier this week, don't worry about it. He's actively downplaying this, literally trying to blame it on everybody else coming from out of state, everybody, you know, gathering at, you know, maybe theme parks or water parks or hell, just even at the beach, but don't worry. Everything's going to be fine.

Here's the thing, again, Florida highest in the country right now, cases doubled over the last week, a 429% increase in total number of cases from the previous month at this point. Florida's not just going to be okay. Not to mention the fact we're not in August yet either, buddy. August is still actually a pretty heavy tourist month too, by the way. So we still have what another month where cases are going to continue to go up because people are still coming down here. No, the problem is not the tourists. The problem is that you have been a governor. That's what this is. And this is the man who, by the way, is currently in second place, I guess you would say, for the 2024 Republican primary. He wants to run the country and he can't even run Florida effectively. This guy actively is trying to prevent and actually I think he has, via executive order, prevented cities and municipalities from enforcing any kind of COVID restrictions. State, or excuse me, city governments in the state of Florida are not allowed to have mask mandates in place. Governor's orders.

So the few things we could do to protect ourselves from the Delta variant and the Alpha variant, but the Delta variant is now the dominant one here in the state of Florida, the things we could be doing to protect ourselves, he literally made them illegal and then wants to turn around and say, oh, it's just because we're so dang busy with all the tourists here and everything. It's crazy. Florida economy is boomin'. Yeah. So is the funeral industry. So is the coffin industry. They're doing great. Hospitals are once again, reaching capacity here in Florida to the point where they can, you know, some of them, not all of them like it got to last summer, but we have hospitals here in the state of Florida that can't take somebody if they have an emergency appendicitis, sorry, no room for you. Gonna have to let that appendix burst and you're going to die. Oh, sorry that you're having a heart attack, but we're going to have to drive you an extra 30 minutes away because this hospital close to you is too full. Hopefully you don't die in the ambulance.

That's one of the real dangers with COVID, folks, because it's not just the people dying of COVID. It's not just the anti-vaxxers who are now having to have lung transplants. It's hospitals reaching capacity.