Many publications and politicians have levied their criticisms against Governor Ron DeSantis and his policy decisions with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many articles have depicted Florida as being the epicenter of an outbreak. Recent criticisms have been levied against DeSantis’ ban on mask and vaccine mandates. This article will look at Mayo Clinic statistics and other academic publications to determine whether these criticisms are justified. The aim of this article is not to discredit specific criticisms or to argue that the state’s policy is immune to critique. Rather this article looks to determine whether the popular media is justified in portraying the state’s policy as being inadequate in combating the virus.

In order to get a solid understanding of how one can judge Florida’s COVID-19 policy we must note what measurements will be used to quantify and compare Florida’s COVID-19 situations with that of other states within the United States. Many publications use the total number of cases and deaths due to COVID-19 when making remarks about Florida’s policy. However, this does not help us as it provides no comparative basis for us to compare Florida with other states as it does not account for population differences between states. In order to provide a proper comparative analysis of the numbers, this article will use cases per 100,000, mortality rate and vaccination percentage. These numbers will give a basis for comparison.

With regards to policy trends and recommendations currently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has banned mask and vaccine mandates. He also expressed that lockdown measures would not be used to combat the virus in Florida.¹ These are measures that have often been used in other states and countries. The academic and medical literature is split on this issue of mandates and lockdowns. On one hand the World Health Organization released a statement back in October of 2020 discouraging governments from using lockdowns as a way of combating the virus.² The nearly 6,000 scientists who joined the movement cited many issues including; disproportionate harm to the underprivileged, lower childhood vaccination rates, worsened care for chronic patients and senior citizens as well as economic consequences.² The WHO went as far as saying that low risk individuals should be allowed to work and engage in activities such as shopping and in person schooling.² Mask and vaccine mandates are also topics which garner debate amongst experts. However, most experts do state that these mandates can help to combat the virus. Statistics observed by health experts showed that mask mandates significantly lowered the incidence of developing all symptoms of COVID-19.³ Although masks were not observed to be a fool proof way of combating the virus, they still helped enough that having these mandates in place made sense from a policy standpoint. With regards to vaccine statistics from hospitalization records show that a majority of those who are hospitalized due to COVID-19 are either unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated.⁶ This speaks to the vaccine’s effectiveness in fighting the virus. However, expert studies show that vaccinated people can still contract COVID-19 and spread it to other people.³ When considering all of the research, one can arrive at the conclusion that although the effectiveness of lockdowns is in question, mask and vaccine mandates provide an overall net positive in combating the virus.

The statistics from Mayo Clinic paint an interesting picture of Florida and their policy decisions regarding COVID-19. When looking at Florida one can see that they average 30 cases per 100,000 on a daily basis with 57% of the population being fully vaccinated.⁴ Their percentage of positive cases is trending downwards with it being at 20% in August compared to around 9.5% in September of 2021. Although these are not the best numbers, they are superior to many states.⁴ Even those states who have imposed these mandates regarding vaccines and masks see a small decrease in cases per 100,000 and a small increase in total percentage of population vaccinated. Although these are definitely improved situations when compared to Florida, the numbers do not seem to justify the media’s constant criticism of Florida as being an epicenter for a COVID-19 outbreak.

Therefore, although Florida is not seen to be the best from a statistical point of view, they are not the worst either. Their percentage of population vaccinated is middle of the pack and so are their cases per 100,000. Expert medical opinion states that mandates do provide some benefit with regards to combatting the virus but even without these mandates Florida, by the numbers, is doing an average job of combatting the virus. Although they could do better the constant criticism in the media seems to be unjustified when considering the statistics.