Florida, Finally
The state will go on lockdown, far too late.
By David Leonhardt
Opinion Columnist
• April 2, 2020, 8:49 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/co...trump.html
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke at a news conference this month.Credit...Aileen Perilla/Associated Press
Much of red America is finally going on lockdown.
After resisting the pleas of public health experts for days, the governors of Florida, Georgia and Mississippi — all states won by President Trump in 2016 — announced yesterday that they will be ordering their residents to stay home, effective Friday.
The turnabout from Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, was especially stark. DeSantis had previously allowed spring break vacationers to socialize on Florida's beaches, where they likely spread the virus. Florida, of course, also has one of the nation’s largest populations of people over 65, who are especially threatened by the virus.
The new lockdowns are welcome, because they will help slow the virus. But they’re also coming much later than they should have. A big reason that the virus has recently been spreading more rapidly in the United States than in Europe or Asia is the slow response from many American political leaders.
Trump spent almost two months falsely claiming the virus was going away, and he continues to send mixed signals. At Wednesday’s news briefing, he said that some states “don’t have much of a problem.” (He’s right the caseload is only in the hundreds in some states, but it is growing rapidly nationwide.) Many Republican governors have chosen to echo him. DeSantis, for instance, acted as if he could stop the virus merely by keeping New Yorkers out of his state.
A newly published analysis by The Times finds that the states where travel declined the least last week were almost all Trump-voting states. “I saw people this weekend shaking hands with each other,” Lenny Curry, the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida’s largest city, told reporters.
The pattern isn’t perfectly partisan. A few Republican governors, like Mike DeWine in Ohio and Larry Hogan in Maryland, have responded aggressively. A few Democratic politicians, like the New York mayor Bill de Blasio, have reacted too slowly. But the pattern is nonetheless a strong one: The only 13 states that have still not issued stay-at-home orders, including Texas, were all won by Trump four years ago.
Related: Two weeks ago, about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin ignored doctors’ warnings and traveled together to Mexico spring break. At least 44 of those students have now tested positive for the virus, as David Montgomery and Manny Fernandez report from Texas.
The state will go on lockdown, far too late.
By David Leonhardt
Opinion Columnist
• April 2, 2020, 8:49 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/opinion/co...trump.html
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke at a news conference this month.Credit...Aileen Perilla/Associated Press
Much of red America is finally going on lockdown.
After resisting the pleas of public health experts for days, the governors of Florida, Georgia and Mississippi — all states won by President Trump in 2016 — announced yesterday that they will be ordering their residents to stay home, effective Friday.
The turnabout from Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, was especially stark. DeSantis had previously allowed spring break vacationers to socialize on Florida's beaches, where they likely spread the virus. Florida, of course, also has one of the nation’s largest populations of people over 65, who are especially threatened by the virus.
The new lockdowns are welcome, because they will help slow the virus. But they’re also coming much later than they should have. A big reason that the virus has recently been spreading more rapidly in the United States than in Europe or Asia is the slow response from many American political leaders.
Trump spent almost two months falsely claiming the virus was going away, and he continues to send mixed signals. At Wednesday’s news briefing, he said that some states “don’t have much of a problem.” (He’s right the caseload is only in the hundreds in some states, but it is growing rapidly nationwide.) Many Republican governors have chosen to echo him. DeSantis, for instance, acted as if he could stop the virus merely by keeping New Yorkers out of his state.
A newly published analysis by The Times finds that the states where travel declined the least last week were almost all Trump-voting states. “I saw people this weekend shaking hands with each other,” Lenny Curry, the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida’s largest city, told reporters.
The pattern isn’t perfectly partisan. A few Republican governors, like Mike DeWine in Ohio and Larry Hogan in Maryland, have responded aggressively. A few Democratic politicians, like the New York mayor Bill de Blasio, have reacted too slowly. But the pattern is nonetheless a strong one: The only 13 states that have still not issued stay-at-home orders, including Texas, were all won by Trump four years ago.
Related: Two weeks ago, about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin ignored doctors’ warnings and traveled together to Mexico spring break. At least 44 of those students have now tested positive for the virus, as David Montgomery and Manny Fernandez report from Texas.
