I have numerous problems with DeSantis and Florida in general when it comes to Covid. I've outlined a ton of them throughout the 100 pages of this thread. But NY didn't follow the CDC guidelines, they did their own thing. And it cost them. They may have thought they were following it, but they didn't.
DeSantis for the win
- Thread starter Tsing Tao
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I have numerous problems with DeSantis and Florida in general when it comes to Covid. I've outlined a ton of them throughout the 100 pages of this thread. But NY didn't follow the CDC guidelines, they did their own thing. And it cost them. They may have thought they were following it, but they didn't.
Would you say that NY's actions were more congruent with the guidelines than FL's
No, I wouldn't. And the results show it. Sending your sick to long term care facilities was only supposed to be done when those facilities could show they could do it safely. That's a rather important variable in the equation. Sending them is the easy part.
I agree - New York went in their own direction at the time with their re-admission of COVID patients into nursing homes. Cuomo and other state officials should have stepped up and accepted responsibility for this situation -- instead they went down the road of attempting to shift blame.
Other states should learn by what New York did wrong with nursing homes and not repeat the situation. The need to not re-admit COVID patients, not allow visitors, limit the number of vendors, and test all patients/employees regularly at nursing homes are some of the lessons that other states should pay close attention to.
So you think NY's response was worse than FL's? Overall, not just nursing homes.
Ah, now that's a very complex question. I'll try to do my best. Remember, this is my opinion.
I think NYs response with the nursing homes was a disaster. Had they not failed in that regard (and then NJ and CT and MI and other states that took their lead from NY) the policy response from state governments might have been drastically different. Panic ensued when they saw 4-6% fatality rates and immediately forced everyone to lock down everything and essentially drop a nuke on the economy.
I don't believe there was any malicious "kill the economy so we can take Trump down" conspiracy. It was just a bad call because we believed the virus to be much more deadly than it actually was. And remember, right around that time Italy was all the rage with the deaths they were experiencing for similar reasons.
But Florida's biggest error was in two places. First, we weren't set up to handle a pandemic and the data reporting necessary for it. Hell, we are notorious for bad data - I made the joke twice in this thread about how we still don't know who won the 2000 election. Remember how we held that up? Stoopid.
Second, DeSantis shot his mouth off and backed Trump when he shouldn't have, and then got defensive and shouldn't have. This is inexperience more than anything, but we didn't have a good alternative to him when he ran - his competitor on the left was found shortly after, naked in a hotel room with a male prostitute and meth. So its not like we had a better choice.
But yeah, Florida is a train wreck for a number of things. Some things I believe they did correctly. And I've always tried to place blame where blame lies and credit where credit is due.
Hope I answered sufficiently.
Thanks for that thorough answer. But I am curious as to what you think FL did correctly.
I think Florida opened up early, and that was the correct decision. I think DeSantis specifically stated that the people who were mostly getting sick weren't the people who had to worry about the virus overall. This doesn't mean that some of those who were compromised and high risk weren't going to get sick, but there is no perfect solution anyway.
Instead, Florida was able to get back to work - mostly - and many businesses that would have otherwise folded stayed afloat. Now, whether they continue to stay afloat as time goes on will have to be seen. But i support those actions 100%. What's more, I have mentioned this before but I am very good friends with the LT Col. here at the base at McDill who is in charge of pandemic planning and response for the US Govt and he also agrees that DeSantis did a decent job because of these reasons. And he sees the raw data every single day.
I know that you don't/cant' take my word on that as it is hearsay, but is one of the reasons I feel confident in my opinion.
Wouldn't the correct decision have been to only lockdown the vulnerable and let the rest of Florida go on about their business?
Yes, but that's easy to say in hindsight. The data coming out of the northern states and europe was catastrophic so I can completely understand why panic ensued. but once they realized that data was flawed, smart states started changing direction.