Pierce: It Took Until This Morning for Ron DiSantis to Stop Dithering

[mcar]

It Took Until This Morning for Ron DiSantis to Stop Dithering
And even then, he only sought to mitigate the PR nightmare, while local mayors actually took action.

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
MAR 19, 2020

Let us begin in Florida, where Trumpian Governor Ron DiSantis seems as baffled by this whole pandemic thing as his hero and role model in Washington is. He closed nightclubs for 30 days, but he left the beaches open, thereby guaranteeing a whole medley of drunk-young-folks videos to entertain us shut-ins elsewhere. So local mayors and city councils and Moondoggies In Chief took on the public-health duties themselves.

Still, the mayors of Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, two of the most popular beach destinations in the state, issued orders to close their beaches this past Sunday. Public beaches in the city of Tampa are also closed, until further notice, city officials said. Naples announced Wednesday that it would close its beaches until March 30. All public beaches in Miami-Dade County will close as of Thursday night, Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez announced Wednesday. Parks, nonessential retail, private educational facilities, casinos and other recreational and entertainment activities, are also ordered closed or restricted as of Thursday night, he said.

Finally, on Thursday morning, DiSantis stepped up and tried to mitigate at least the PR nightmare. From Business Insider:

As much of the nation has adopted social distancing policies, footage of thousands of spring breakers packed together on Florida's beaches has sparked widespread condemnation. Critics went after a handful of college students who told local media in interviews that they didn't care if they contracted the hyper-infectious virus. "If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying," one reveler said. DeSantis said his efforts would overrule local decision making in regards to social distancing. "Regardless of local decisions, you're not going to be able to congregate like those images that you saw," DeSantis said Thursday.

Except, of course, that it was mayors making those “local decisions” who closed various beaches while DiSantis was still dithering.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31788543/ron-disantis-coronavirus-spring-break/