There should be a special place in hell — or potentially in prison — for politicians who put their political goals ahead of the health and safety of our children. That is exactly what Gov. Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida with the executive order he signed last Friday barring school districts from mandating that students and school employees wear masks during the spike in Covid cases.
Beyond his potentially deadly decision about Florida schools, DeSantis poses a different, but familiar, danger to our country. As Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani said Wednesday on my SiriusXM show, DeSantis is “basically Trump 2.0.”
Former President Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to our nation — at least, if you support our democratic republic. But DeSantis is more dangerous.
Yes, former President Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to our nation — at least, if you support our democratic republic. But DeSantis is more dangerous.
For starters, DeSantis wields actual governmental power, while Trump has none. Beyond that, while Trump reportedly was able to get into the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business only with the help of a family member, DeSantis graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law with honors. And DeSantis, who served in the Navy as a JAG officer, at 42 is far younger than the 75-year-old Trump. DeSantis is the future of the GOP. Trump has — at most — one more campaign left in him.
DeSantis’ rationale for his order about state school mask mandates was that parents — not pediatricians or infectious disease experts — should make decisions about how best to protect the health of children.
Schools open as soon as next week in the Sunshine State during a spike in Covid-19 cases. On Wednesday, Florida reported that 12,408 patients were hospitalized, breaking the state’s Covid-19 hospitalization record, which had been set the day before, with 11,515 patients.
As the Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday, Florida leads the country in children hospitalized with Covid-19. Pediatric Covid-19 patients in BayCare’s 15 Florida hospitals doubled in July compared to June, after two months of declining numbers.
Experts warn that DeSantis’ decision to ban mask mandates is dangerous to the health of children. A panel of Florida medical experts that included well-known pediatricians warned parents Monday that the delta variant poses a greater risk to children than last summer’s Covid-19 strain, as they all vocally recommended that children wear masks in schools. As one of the Florida doctors bluntly put it, “Children get sick from Covid, children get hospitalized from Covid, and children can die from Covid.”
In an op-ed Wednesday in The Washington Post, Dr. Heather Haq, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Texas’ Baylor College of Medicine, wrote: “I am more worried for children than I have ever been.” Haq and other pediatric doctors have also raised red flags about the possible long-term health impact of the delta variant on children who contract the virus.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended that all people over age 2 who attend school in person should wear masks — regardless of their vaccination statuses. That’s especially important because children under 11 can’t be vaccinated until the Food and Drug Administration approves the vaccines. And in Florida, only 38 percent of those ages 12 to 19 are vaccinated, the lowest vaccination rate of any age group.
But DeSantis’ sights are trained on a 2024 presidential run.








