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Top Three Takeaways – October 28th, 2021
- Florida has the fewest COVID-19 cases in the country. Just over two months ago Florida had the highest population adjusted COVID-19 case count in country. Everyone knew it. National news, state news, local news, it didn’t matter. Day in and day out there was no mistaking that Florida was leading the country in COVID-19 cases. Fast forward to today. Overall cases are now over 91% lower than about two months ago and Florida has the fewest population adjusted COVID-19 cases in the country. Naturally it’s being reported with as much rigor as when Florida was at the peak of the summer surge...oh wait. That’s right, it’s crickets with your dishonest news media. This is the ultimate narrative killer, isn’t it? In numerous respects. First, that Governor DeSantis’s policies could ever result in the best outcomes during the pandemic. Second, that vaccinations are the way out of this. Third, that mandates and restrictive policies aren’t effective in controlling the spread of the virus. I’ll elaborate on the vaccination dynamic for a moment. Florida’s COVID-19 vaccination rate is better than average. Florida’s vax rate is currently the 18th highest nationally. Ironically, just above President Biden’s home state of Delaware. How much time has he and his administration spent lecturing and scolding Florida over polices, when our state has a higher rate of vaccination than his home state? Anyway, the point is there are currently 17 states with higher vaccination rates than Florida with higher population adjusted cases than Florida. What does that tell you? And that’s with the least restrictive policies from a state government in the country. Once again, we have an illustration of why...
- Pragmatism as opposed to extremism is important. From the onset of the pandemic, I’ve spoken of the trajectory of the 1918 pandemic. That’s because history has a way of repeating itself and from the onset, the similarities between the two were striking. It was also likely the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants would wreak havoc for a while and eventually become a seasonal flu – just as the H1N1 virus had done a hundred years before. The key would be getting there. The getting there has been different this time because we have had access to vaccines, which are a tool in the tool kit, but given the rampant breakthrough cases – not a panacea – despite health experts starting with Dr. Fauci suggesting as much. Pragmatism as opposed to extremism is almost always the best path forward, and it’s proved to be once again for Florida.
- Florida schools are the political battleground. That’s the title of a story presented yesterday from Politico’s Gary Fineout. While I don’t agree with all of the characterizations in the story, I do agree with the premise. Our school boards are and need to be the political battleground. That’s because they have been a political battleground for decades, we just generally weren’t paying attention. As was noted in the story, school boards across the state have attempted and continue to assess ways to limit access and interactions in board meetings as boards members offer up excuses of having been harassed and even threatened. Let’s be clear about something. Any school board member who’s alleging threats at this point is full of crap. It’s against the law to threaten any school board official. If there were legitimate threats they should be produced and the people behind them prosecuted. Otherwise, they’re full of it and attempting to hide behind this national narrative that concerned parents are really “insurrectionists”, as Broward School Board Chair Osgood recently said. The narrative advanced by AG Merrick Garland with his FBI directive to investigate concerned parents at school board meetings is nothing more than a means of intimidation. Garland who once again had no answers before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday as to why he really issued the memo. That’s because schools have been a political battleground controlled by the teachers’ unions for decades. Parents have just now become aware that there’s a battle over the minds of their children. That’s why this is a battle which must be won with continued engagement with local school boards – regardless of the obstacles they attempt to implement.