Anyone who has been mocked, dismissed and ridiculed for disagreeing with the initial, conventional wisdom about the coronavirus pandemic should be happy to hear that Thursday’s CBS Mornings featured some schadenfreude. Tony Dokoupil, co-host of CBS Mornings, went to Florida to find that Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), policies on the virus were popular and even admitted that he might be right.
Dokoupil stated on one of the teases that COVID-19 had “hit Florida hard”, but Governor Ron DeSantis said he took the right approach to the state’s economy. He also said he would “show how pandemic political are playing into the race to governor.”
At the beginning, he explained that Florida had the “12th highest death rate in America, 382 deaths per 100,000 people according to the CDC”. While Governor Ron DeSantis said that he was right to reopen Florida’s economy and lift restrictions much earlier than his more cautious counterparts.
“Now voters can choose which approach they want to reward: the one in Florida or beyond. He added that for a brief moment in early 2020, all the governors in America seemed to be saying exactly the same thing.”
However, those few weeks or months were filled with the reality of “schools and squeezing peoples ability to make it a living.” This included people like Hialeah, Florida gym owners Eddie Morris and Hialeah. Morris told Dokoupil that “it was horrible” and asked if he would survive. Morris replied that he would “be washed-out” if the gym was located in New York.
Participate in DeSantis’s strategy for reopening
As frustration mounted, the blue state governors remained cautious and committed to following federal guidance. Republicans like Governor Ron DeSantis continued to defy it…lifting Stay-at-Home orders, reopening schools to in-person learning, and dropping mask mandates sometimes many months before the CDC considered them wise.
Dokoupil stated prior to the clips that were slammed him from MSNBC’s Vin Gupta or CNN’s Erin Burnett that “for Ron DeSantis it meant reinvention als a national hero for some and a target for others.”
Dokoupil asked Dr. David Agus, a CBS News medical contributor, if he was right. Agus responded that he was trying to avoid saying DeSantis was wrong (click “expand”).
DOKOUPIL: Two years later, a question arose: Who was right?
DESANTIS [on 01/11/22] : We were right, they were wrong, millions of families in Florida are happier for it.
DOKOUPIL [TO AGUS]: Is Ron DeSantis right?
AGUS: No.
DOKOUPIL: Dr. David Agus, a CBS News Medical contributor, is DOKOUPIL.
AGUS: I can’t tell you which one is right or wrong, and that’s part the problem. It’s not a binary issue of black/white.
DOKOUPIL: One study compared all of it, taking in to account the economy, education and public health. The final report card was prepared in part by right-leaning researchers. Florida received an A, while New York and California received failing grades. A second study in Nature points out a problem: weighing “harms & benefits often comes down to value judgements, not scientific calculations.”
AGUS: Masks work best in the right environment. Shutdowns work well in the right setting. Shutdowns work in the right setting.
DOKOUPIL [TO AGUUS]: Do you think Governor Ron DeSantis deserves credit for any portion of his COVID policies that you’ve seen?
AGUS: I believe he provided leadership. You know, I respect that part and I give him credit.
Dario Moreno, Florida International University’s president, said that DeSantis “caught an atmosphere in Florida that worked very well to his advantage”. Dokoupil described this as “reopening” in a state that “practically runs on tourism and service industry” that “actually placed [him] in stronger position today than when [he] first campaigned” for the office in 2018.
Moreno explained that DeSantis is someone people consider to have “stood up in freedom.”
Moreno said that COVID was a “deeply emotional issue”, with people voting differently depending on whether they lost their job or their house in the pandemic, or if they lost a loved.
Gayle King, Democratic donor and co-host, tried to counter Dokoupil’s insistence on finding someone who was strongly against DeSantis. He also discussed how he handled COVID. He said that “shutdowns…worked” but Floridians don’t believe the facts. Click “expand”:
DOKOUPIL – Yes, I went to Florida recently and spoke to about 50 voters in three different areas of the state. This is for a piece we haven’t aired yet. I found nothing but Ron DeSantis supporters, so in Florida, from a political standpoint, his moves on COVID seem very, very popular. It all comes down to perception. Do you care more about the economic consequences of your household? Or do you care more for the public health consequences? If you care more about the economy and weren’t affected by the other stuff, you will love what he did.
KING: Yes, I agree that feelings are more important than facts and numbers. This resonates with many people.
DOKOUPIL: Yeah.
KING: I — That is what I get.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS – If you’re, as he said, someone who has lost someone close to you, there is one way you can think about it. If you were someone who had it all and nothing happened —
KING: Nothing happened.
DUTHIERS – then you will have a different feeling about it.
DOKOUPIL: Yes, but lockdowns and shut downs affect the entire State, while COVID fatalities only affect those households.
DUTHIERS: Yeah.
KING: However, the shutdowns also worked.
DOKOUPIL: So there’s a debate about how much there was a benefit, and then you get into the value judgement.
KING: Mmhmm.
DOKOUPIL: There is no clear answer. It is impossible to go to science and ask, “Dear Science! What is the answer?”
Click here to see the CBS transcript for November 3.
